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Fake Steve is being forced to quit. Most likely by the real Steve's frigtard lawyers.

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Labels: hunh?, meta

All hail the great Borg collective.

Labels: meta

This is one hell of a picture. That's the Comet McNaught that is very visible to the naked eye. I wish we could see it, but I fear that the light pollution here obscures it.

Labels: picture, science fiend

I'm not sure if it's a latin thing, but they like to tell stories that are rooted in a style that's called "Magical Realism." Again, I'm not sure, but these stories deal with the real world, but add an element of fantasy to them which make them more whimsical in nature.

The latest two movies I have seen both seem to be part of that genre, Pan's LabyrinthVolver. Both are done by well regarded directors, Guillermo del Toro and Pedro Almodovar. The former a relative new comer who has been heaped praises upon his most recent outing, and the latter a highly acclaimed Spanish director. Each of these films present a world on the cinema screen that builds some fantastical feelings when watched.

Pan's Labyrinth is the more straight outright fantasy. You could tell, what with the fairy tale setting and elaborate "Princess of the Underworld" myth-making. The story takes place in Franco's Spain as the liberal guerilla fighters battle against the fascist Spanish government. Within this setting a little girl finds herself in an unfolding myth of fairies and fauns that are helpful or not. She is told that she is the lost princess of the underworld and must complete three tasks to return to it triumphant.

It is here, where the audience must connect with the girl and the magic needs to happen within the viewer. The other characters in the movie don't seem to realize that there are fairies or they don't believe. Is it all in her head?

The tasks are performed in another fantasy realm. This is in contrast to the fascist spain. The real world intrudes on the fictional world that seems to be all coming from the girl's imagination. Again, is it all in her head?

As I watched, I did not get the point of the juxtaposition of both worlds. I wanted to spend more time in the fantastic realm and felt the real world encumbered the story. Yet, del Toro needed both for the story to work.

The ending left me with the impression that it was all in her head. The fantasy realm she created was to escape her situation. She did and became princess of the underworld, but not the way you would expect. Bittersweet, but necessary.

3 of 5 stars.

Volver started in the real world. The characters are modern day people doing modern day things in Spain. Yet, whimsy to comes to them.

This was the first Almodovar film I have seen. I heard of his use of women characters, but was taken back with the fact that that was all there is in this one.

The story begins with the visit to Raimunda's parents grave and to her Tia. There the stage is set for the return of someone once thought dead, her mother. When she does, I could not think that she was really alive, but a ghost to help guide her daughters through difficult straights. That's when I felt it entered the "magical real" realm. Alas, she was very much alive. And she very much helped her daughters out.

More telling is that this movie felt to my mom to be very filipino-ish. I may be because under spanish rule, the Philippines may have inherited some of the "magical realism." Regardless, the story featured some light-hearted twists that were not readily discernible so that they surprise.

The movie itself is a surprise, and I should add some Almodovar to my Netflix queue.

4 of 5 stars.

Labels: movies, review

The discussion about the Oscar nominations over at The Seed is going along swimmingly. You should join.

But that's not what this post is about.

What I want to know is who's hosting the Science and Technical Awards? Every year they get some actress to present the awards.

Check out this list:

• Rachel McAdams
• Scarlet Johansson
• Jennifer Garner
• Kate Hudson
• Charlize Theron
• Renee Zellweger
• Selma Hayek

Hotties!

So who cares about Ellen, who's the technical achievement awards host? She'll probably charm the audience.

Labels: link fest, movies, she's hot

So President Fucktard had his State of the Union Speech last night. I didn't watch or read it. It would just make my blood boil. All I can think about is that we are left with 2 more years of this fuck. And we'll still be in Iraq.

What was it he said in the 2000 presidential debates?

MODERATOR: New question. How would you go about as president deciding when it was in the national interest to use U.S. force, generally?

BUSH: Well, if it's in our vital national interest, and that means whether our territory is threatened or people could be harmed, whether or not the alliances are -- our defense alliances are threatened, whether or not our friends in the Middle East are threatened. That would be a time to seriously consider the use of force. Secondly, whether or not the mission was clear. Whether or not it was a clear understanding as to what the mission would be. Thirdly, whether or not we were prepared and trained to win. Whether or not our forces were of high morale and high standing and well-equipped. And finally, whether or not there was an exit strategy. I would take the use of force very seriously. I would be guarded in my approach. I don't think we can be all things to all people in the world. I think we've got to be very careful when we commit our troops. The vice president and I have a disagreement about the use of troops. He believes in nation building. I would be very careful about using our troops as nation builders. I believe the role of the military is to fight and win war and therefore prevent war from happening in the first place. So I would take my responsibility seriously.

(Bold italics mine)

Read it and weep. He'll use it to fight a war, but when it comes time for peacekeeping missions, not so much. The fucktard can say all he wants, but everyone should've known that he would never have been serious about putting a nation back together again. And he did it twice.

He viewed peacekeeping as an inessential aspect of our military. We can blow it up real good, but someone else should clean the mess up. And that is why we're here today. And will be there tomorrow and the next.

His exit strategy was always blow it up and leave. Why do you think he abandoned the Afghanistan front quickly? And why do you think he pushed quickly through to Baghdad? To get it over and done. "Mission Accomplished?" Yes, since his mission was to break stuff and leave.

That's all you really needed to have read before the war -- his anathema to securing the peace straight from the horse's mouth. To believe that he would be able to create a stable, democratic state in the middle east is to believe a lie. This fucktard president has always been lying to us. Presidents have been impeached for those kind of shenanigans.

He goes on later in his rebuttal of VP Gore:

BUSH: (snip)... If we don't have a clear vision of the military, if we don't stop extending our troops all around the world and nation building missions, then we're going to have a serious problem coming down the road, and I'm going to prevent that. I'm going to rebuild our military power. It's one of the major priorities of my administration.

He's destroyed it. Our military is spread thin and it's hard to find the soldiers to carry on in Iraq. We are already in that serious problem. Why couldn't he have listened to his own self?

We are a poorer nation for having him as our president.

Labels: get me out of here, presidential, wankers

Here's one I had which woke me up early this morning. Don't do an analysis on this one. She's not in it. Or if she was I am trying not to remember. Anyway it is more of a strange dream. I don't know what it means.

I'm back in school at the U for only one class and all my favorite peopele are in it. There's the gang from Shore Studios. There's my cousin who's also my roomate. There's the hot Jamaican chinese girl. THere's some others.

The class is some kind of writing class or a literature class.

THe first class goes by. We have a discussion. I take notes on the back of a receipt.

I am sitting in the back. At the end of the class we get to order food and drinks.

I am going to the next class following some frat guys with no shoes. I wonder why they think themselves to be cool without any shoes on.

The next class I want to get close to the hot Jamaican chinese girl so I sit up front. I place my notebook on my desk to save it and go out to the bathroom. I follow the hot Jamaincan chinese girl in. She takes my spot. So I sit by my friends from shore studios. A sits with her husband I think. W sits behind. The class starts and again I try to take notes on a receipt the same receipt from the last class. I have to turn it over because I am running out of space. I finally remember my notebook.

The instructor then puts on a movie for us to watch. It's terrible. I put my head down to go to sleep, but in minutes the movie's over.

The instructor passes back homework and receipts from the last class.

We have some time left in the class so we have discussion time. The instructor asks if anyone has been divorced. A raises her hands and asks back, "What kind of question is that/". The instructor asked this question because he's in the middle of one which is making him sad.

The class is over. W and I go out. I am ask him why we do comm more. He wonders the same about A.

Labels: dreams, nostalgia

Diane Lane is 42.

From the way her career had been going I thought she was much, much older.

Even more...

You'll be hearing this all day. Plus you'll pull the DVD (the original not the elaborate version) from your library and watch it again. All 3 hours. Good luck on that.

With the acquisition of the big ass hard drive and of Margaux's new Mac Book, it's time to think about computer naming conventions.

You just can't let the hardware use the default name, because it'll look funny on the network. For instance, I have named the big ass hard drive Gondolin. As you can tell (or can't) this is a name from Tolkien. Yes it's geeky. Doubly so.

All the computers that I have owned have names derived from Tolkien. Let's see. My PowerBook 190 was Luthien. My Win95 box was Beren. My wifi network is Nargothrond. The MacMini PPC is Dorthonion. The TiBook is Doriath. The Airport Express is Finrod. My shuffle is even named Tinuviel. They're all from Tolkien, the First Age, and The Silmarillion. Told ya it was geeky.

Anyway, the only issue is how to name these computing equipment. I had tried to stick with place names for most of my Apple computers. The older stuff though took the names of my favorite characters from the Silmarillion. I should standardize it where computers are places and peripherals people, but it's so far served me good. But at least sticking within in this naming scheme I won't run out of names to use and it evokes some rather cool imagery of my network.

I should just name all my computers after the 12 dwarf companions of Bilbo from The Hobbit.

Labels: nerd, Tolkien

Looking for storage solutions for my computers at home, I settled on this external hard drive. 500 GB of space! Like the title suggests, this drive is more space than all the computers sitting in my house currently have combined!

What to do?

Partition it? Should I break it down into smaller logical spaces? Most of my computers are already partitioned. I'm afraid that I may need to save a 300 GB file.

Start back ups? Eh. I'm not too worried about losing data. Yet.

Re-install Tiger, 10.4? Booting off the fire wire would be cool. But why?

It's a lot, but I really would've liked to put this on the network as a network drive. The solution to that would be this, but that's another expense. I tried looking at this, but it would've forced me to use a weird PC file system. Complicated.

Labels: computing, Macs

Super Mario War. Nice.

When can we go after those damn ferengis?

Freedom Writers is an inspirational movie. Aren't they all? You could've probably guessed the plot for this one. Take one beleagured teacher. In this case Hilary Swank is the new teacher in town who has to salvage a school in the throes of integration after the LA riots. Add in an underachieving class. The freshmen english Swank has to teach is filled with the bused in kids from the projects. Get them to perform past their capabilities. The class writes to the lady who hid Anne Francke and she visits to inspire them. Don't forget the indifferent school administration. And the struggle on the home front for the teacher.

Yeah, you could've written it. Although it does inspire you. Plus some early 90s hip-hop. Good and solid.

3 of 5 stars.

Labels: movies, review

That's the first time I have ever seen a Raven lay an egg. What a pathetic performance!

When I had walked into work on Friday, people were accosting me about why I wasn't wearing purple. Now the Ravens are not my first team. I'll support them because they are the home team. Yet, the level of haughtiness shown by assuming that this wold've been a win was unpleasant.

Labels: football

The Fake Steve Jobs deserves a round of applause.

Labels: NewsRadio quote

I have recently seen two movies that portray the future of mankind as bleak, Children of Men and Idiocracy. The first is the film adaptation of PD James's novel, and the latter is from the mind of Mike Judge who brought us Beavis and Butthead and Office Space. Their tones are so much different the one a high-falutin' angsty expression the other downright absurd comedy, but they point to the fact that mankind's future is not so bright. I liked the comdey, but the drama in Children of Men held some problems.

Several minutes into Children of Men, you are left to ponder how, scientifically, the world's human females could not produce children. In science fiction, usually that question doesn't have to be answered. You should let the story unfold. You should settle in and feel what the movie should be telling you.

Except with this movie you get doubts. Why? How does the world devolve into a state of chaos after the realization that the human race cannot reproduce? Wouldn't it be that human life has become more valuable?

It is missing the backstory. Not that every distopian future needs a backstory, but it needs to be believable that this could happen. I needed an explanation for why it was the female humans could not have babies. So that the lady with the baby becomes even more fantastic. A miracle of sorts. Without the scientific explanation, I couldn't buy into the story.

Several minutes into Idiocracy, you feel that this is the future if we don't wise up. The people are stupid because only the stupid are making babies. It points out that our worship of stupid will get us into some trouble in the future. It's stupid and funny, but downright scary and sad. "So basically it says here you're fucked up, you sound like a fag, and your shit's all retarded."

3 of 5 stars. Children of Men
4 of 5 stars. Idiocracy

Labels: movies, review

Looks as if the rumors are true. Amazing thing is that it runs a scaled
down version of OS X! If it sells as well as the music iPod, OS X will
be the platform to develop for in the next couple of years. Start up
your compilers.

While most of my blogging buddies have be quiet this year, a new addition has quietly picked up the baton and written a slew of posts this year. So if you're tired of not reading much from me, here's Margeaux with her rants about life.

Tomorrow is another big Steve Job's Keynote speech. He may introduce a new ipod phone or when Leopard will be released. Use this bingo card to play along. You know the rules. Fill in whatever Steve Jobs has said. The winner is the Apple users!

Update:Here's the definitive Keynote Bingo Card from the originator himself.

Labels: Apple, games people play

The EMS store in Cockeysville is closing down. All stuff in the store is 30% off including sale items. They really are trying to unload their winter clothing but they have some other stuff as well. I picked up the National Geographic Back Roads Explorer topological mapping software. I figure for $35 it's a good price.

I'm going to use to map my cycling routes.

The map you see here is the route I call "Around Mom's Block." As you can see it's relatively short at just over five miles. It's a fun little ride with a quick downhill section followed by a nice steady climb. Do it a couple times for maxmimum benefit.

Of 2007.

Well, it's been quiet. After the burst of activity for the 31 days of December, I took a break. No posting, because I couldn't think of anything. Should I have put down my haul from Christmas? Should I wish you a happy new year? Should I list my resolutions?

Maybe. Perhaps. I don't know.

So I planned to lightly post for a while.

Things are the same. The calendar may say a new year, but the days go by all the same.