Friday, October 31, 2003

Halo Demo

Well, played the demo of Halo, on the PC as we have no XBoxes here, and quite nice it was too. Sort of mindless shooty with a thin veneer of story. I think it is something deep down that in my head a game is just that, a game. Not some sort of click here, mess with this number, select that, view outcome. No, it's gotta be more hands on. Something with physics is nice, like There.com, has an element of nowness about it. Not some disembodied thing where you see it from the heavens and just monitor the outcome!

I think that I REALLY need to check out the full thing as soon as I can stop keep just picking up the box in BestBuy, and actually take it to the checkout. Not keep going to myself "Weeeeeeell it's a lot of cash, and I don't really need it", in that whiney inner voice that likes to come with me on shopping trips.



Halo, stuff blows up

Wednesday, October 29, 2003

Some people....

Had to get this one out of my system, after some really pathetic computer crap, I was supposed to help sort out!!

If that makes little sense then I am sure you have people in your life that you think would need this publication...

Tuesday, October 28, 2003

Enterprise Wind tunnel testing...

Laser Diagnostics apparently found that the design of the Star Trek Enterprise (Original series) would indeed be ok going at all those impressively theoretically super-duper speeds.

Neeeeeeeeooooooooooooooooowwww!

Another Movie line while the concept is novel

Here is one from Dancing at the Blue Iguana. A movie which the lovely Tivo decided to record, but we never made it to the end. You know what it's like watching a movie where a lot of people make a lot of bad choices, and then it's sort of painful to watch them make even MORE bad choices trying to get out of the initial round of wrong-chiocemanship. Not my idea of entertainment. Either make it complete fantasy, or if not try and make it happy. If it must be 'reality' then make it REAL and definately not what some ego's idea of what a perfect life might be.

No I do not think people on the street are 'smart' or have some cosmic inside knowledge which they dispense to people like a load of drug dealing Yodas. If they are so wise, why are they living in such a world of crap, looking over their shoulder for Mr. Big's collecting crew, who this week are doing a special on knee-caps.

I'm sure a 'smart' person would prefer getting a job and earning some cash to have some nice things? Is it just me?

I mention choices here, and I know that sometimes people have NO CHOICE, but given that anyone can choose to do what they want to a certain degree. Why on earth choose to be someone spending most of your day worrying about getting your head blown off?? Is is still just me??

So in essence my idea of entertainment, is NOT to watch some idiot prattling on about how tough it is, how tough they are, how much the boss of everyone else they may be, yadda yadda yadda, yawn....... I am supposed to be riveted by a complete lack of thought, and utter stupid selfishness? Please someone shoot them, now and save us all a rather pathetically painful two hours of watching a load of idiots run from one self made problem, sraight into the next. All in the guise of romantic notions of what it is to live on the 'other side' of the law??

When I said I like reality in my movies if they are not total fantasy (and I mean complete fiction settings and stories), I meant that an honest look at people and what motivates them, which most of the time comes down to similar things. On balance most people WANT to be happy and have few worries, or is that just me too??

So getting back to the point of all this and the movie line from Dancing at the Blue Iguana


"You're not the only one with reproductive organs you know, I'm going to have this baby and my baby is going to sell your baby drugs on the playground!"

Monday, October 27, 2003

Movie lines....

Gotta do a graphic for this, but for now I better post because I keep forgetting to do it.

Anyway the first one that keeps making me laugh in a rather childish fashion is one from Perdita Durango, a rather interesting movie in the fact that you wonder how you might be able to get back those missing 90 minutes!


"Hey what did you read that map with, your a**hole?"

Priceless giggling for many scenes after. The movie was terrible, and yet somehow you just had to keep watching (perhaps to see if the violent killers in it, might do the world a favor and murder the writer).

The other one was from what I am apparently informed is someones "Left Hand Column". The LHC as it will be referred to from now, is what a person is thinking, but of course will never say. You get the idea. So in a lot of LHC's there may be the desire to express the need to tell someone to FO.

This was from an episode of Six Feet Under. Or should I say RANTED and shouted during an episode....


"Why don't you go to the f*cking moon and MIND YOUR OWN MOON BUSINESS!!!"

Then you realise this is not what was said, just someone's guilt, and what they thought they deserved (sort of like High Fidelity).. So take your pick, as you know how frustrating it always is to think of great argument lines AFTER the conflict.

And hey, you will be the first to know if I manage to end an argument with "What did you read that map with, your a**hole?"

Tivo update - Jars, The Matrix, and Amish

Forgot to mention about how this thing solves one of lifes standard arguments...

You know how it is, you are watching someone do something, just ACHING to do it yourself as you KNOW you can do it better, and the person currently attempting said task obviously has no clue. They lack your Martix-esque Neo-like insight into the inner workings of jar cap/double mouse click/calling the cat/tipping large container of contents into smaller empty vessel. Well, swiftly returning to the point of this, the Tivo gets around the phenomenon of the CURSE OF THE REMOTE. This curse is when the person in control of the movie, attempts to fast forward through the commercials, and of course, never hits it correctly. Every single OTHER person on the planet, would have easily stopped the tape at the end of the commercials (even Blinky McSquinty, from the Amish community), and as the show progresses, their judgement gets harsher.

Know how some passengers have that invisible brake pedal, when they think death is imminent? This is a lesser known instance of invisible play button. Others just know they would hit EXACTLY the right spot and not worry about the hideous crime of not getting the very first frame of the next part of the show..

I'm sure I had a point somewhere to all this... Oh yes, about the Tivo. There are three speeds of fast forward, or reverse. From quick to time-travel (Chewbacca would be proud of the speed this thing gets up to). The faster you go forward or backward, the thing has a built in compensation for all of us less than perfectly at one with domestic recording equipment, and works well actually. So if you zip through a break, or preamble to a show, at light speed, when you see the show flashing past and jam on the brakes it goes back to where you WANTED to stop it. Thereby crushing aforementioned evil curse for ever!

See, technology CAN battle evil...


Nothing to do with anything but looks jolly evil don't you think?

Sunday, October 26, 2003

KVM Heaven

My new buddies at IOGEAR, are responsible for making my life easier, and probably better than I could have hoped for. Having a strange need for two computers on the same monitor and NOT two monitors on the same computer (think about it) I invested in one of these handy dandy little bits of plastic from the friendly local Best Buy. Now with the double press of the SCROLL LOCK key I am looking at the other PC. Going to save the wheels on my chair no end, but more importantly electricity, AND let me practise my pastime of seeing how bare I can get my desk.

I thought perhaps the image would be fuzzy or unstable but not at all. Even when running 1280*1024 on one, and 1024*768 on the other, there seems no image degradation. No power supply to worry of, no install, no configuring, just plug it in and go.


KVM's are low in calories

Tivo Review

10 out of 10, 100%, 5 stars, or however your rating system works, is what this review of the Tivo is giving it, so you don't have to scroll down to the end to see what the final round up and score is.


Bottom line, it's like having an infinite number of video recorders for everyone in your house! With the added bonus of being digital quality and never having to set the timer!

So on to the first thing...Never setting the timer. It is because rather than tell the recorder when and where the program is, you just have to know the title, and it takes care of the rest with extremely simple on screen menus. And it just works! It's all in plain and simple English. Would you like to record this show, would you like to record all the shows, would you like to record repeat showings, etc. No mysterious symbols, about the width of 3 atoms, glowing knowingly smugly, in the darkness at you, keeping that nagging thought in the back of your mind that perhaps it KNOWS it isn't going to record anything for you ever! With the Tivo you have lists of things, but not just strange looking lists of times, dates and channels. Actual titles, with channel logos (and their numbers) and dates, all listed from the latest thing recorded, down to the earliest thing you recorded.

The magical part seems to be that all of this is recorded on good old fashioned hard drives and not tape. This means you can play something through a billion times and it never gets worn out, you can pause for ever, and even rewind or pause live tv, but more on that later. The hard drive thing, means that every show you have recorded for different members of the family, all remember how far through they have been watched (if at all). So if I go and watch a rather geeky episode of The Screen Savers for a while before leaving the house, it will resume playing (if I want it to) from the place I stopped it at. No tape to take out, no tape to keep track of, nothing at all except wanting to watch the rest of your shows.

The thing about being able to pause live television is that you can be watching any channel and the Tivo is recording that too. So if you want to channel surf and then find something interesting, you need never miss any of it because you can pause it, and even rewind if you like. If you are doing something in the house and only able to watch some of the show, repeated pausings and resuming playback means that after a certain amount of your own buffer, you can skip the commercials. So you can get work done around the house, AND see all of a show without having to wait for commercials to get on with the rest of a job!

This particular Tivo can record two things at the same time, and then you can watch something else too! So that means conflicting, or overlapping shows on different channels need never be a problem. And if one show being recorded is Barney's Big Adventure, and the other is "She dared to stand up to him" (I think you get my meaning here), you can still watch. "Stuff blowing up with computers attached" that recorded last week, all AT THE SAME TIME!!

The other odd thing the little wonderful box does is record shows it assumes you would like based on things you either watch live or ask it to record. So far I have discovered a lot of new stuff this way. You would think that a Tivo would mean you never watch anything you didn't know about again, but that's where I was wrong. On satelite it seems that they show millions of episodes of a show all the time, but the Tivo is set by default to only record new or non-repeating showings of any show or movie. This shows how many duplicate shows REALLY go out. So if you have seen all those Star Treks, you can leave this thing to make sure you catch the new season as soon as it hits the screens. Or you can say that you want all the repeats, but not duplicate showings, so again, you get all DIFFERENT episodes. Then of course you CAN set it to record all showings including duplicates, but that seems like no fun at all....

As for image quality, I imagined something along the lines of those movie trailers you get online, all blocky and smeary, but I was wrong, it was perfect! The DirectTivo replaced a basic six year old box which was obviously in worse shape than we thought. The DirectTivo picture was amazing, especially for a recording with no tape! I don't mean it was passable as a digital recording, it was BETTER than the old DirectTV box.

If a specific show or movie is not listed, you can tell your box to record any movie or show, with a specific actor (or director) and leave it on your to-do list on the Tivo. When ever a thing matches, it will record it for you.

The shows it has recommended have been interesting, and I think I said before that I am glad of all that marketing and pigeon-holing going on in this instance, as it is actually useful. You find all sorts of new shows you never heard of but seem to like, on the list of recordings you have stored away on it.

As for playing time, we can have 100 hours of solid TV watching, before it will fill up. You can save shows for as long as you like, or just delete them after you have finished them. The reccomendations it records are second place to what ever you specify to record. No chance it seems of filling up the drive inside. I mean that would be four whole days of watching TV around the clock, so with a steady stream of watching and letting shows delete there should be no problem.

This is one of those gadgets you hear people go on about, but don't seem to know anyone yourself who you can ask about it. Take the plunge and you too will soon never miss those shows on TV where you say "OO that looks good we will have to watch that one." Which of course you forget instantly all about it, and then hear how great it was, at work or something, about two episodes from the final one. With the Tivo you just set it, and forget it.


Tivo

Tuesday, October 14, 2003

Big Brother

A very worried person asked this frightening question.

Perhaps you should check your Xboxes as soon as possible.


Check for eyeballs and microphones like so already have

Thursday, October 09, 2003

You want music in your head...

Sing along then annoy the people at work by crooning this (which apears to have the new kitten singing lead) all week long.


Wednesday, October 08, 2003

Arnold Schwarzenegger becomes Govenor of California (yes the actor)

The title may look a little obvious, and be repeated a million times across the web right now, but it's really for the archives, when people hardly remember it, and so I don't have a hard time finding it again. Well I don't think I am too shocked, but hey, this is America after all, so see what the BBC NEWS had to say about it, all those years ago when it happened. Good luck to him, as it seems the people there were pretty cheesed off with the last chap they had running the place. Perhaps the movie industry might get some sort of recognition? Oops became a little politically outspoken there, gotta watch it.

Well, I became a permenant member of the country and Arnie governs California....That's better, back to the more self centered stuff again. Not sure that means anything though..


The man
image credit

Tuesday, October 07, 2003

Citizenship and Tivo

Woohoo, and other assorted celebratory Americanisms! My chums downtown have given me the final stamp of approval, looks as though I am here to stay, and of course now I am surrogate kitty dad/mum and devoted Tivo owner I can't possibly leave!



Tivo is getting a boost today with the addition of a second line in from the dish so we can unleash the ultimate power, of television picked for you, by the marketing guys..... Oh hang on, never thought of it like that before.... So we can record two shows at once, instead of having to pick between conflicting schedules all the time.



Inside my head, when emerging from the interview
image credit

Sunday, October 05, 2003

One of those times...

Immigration interview arriving and asshole ex's babyfied rantings....... you know turning the other cheek is getting mighty tiresome.... But I suppose it's the right thing to do. I have the patience of a rock, and can be in a zen like state for longer than there is going to be zen like states to be in... Been trying to figure out just WHY people have to put up with certain types. Just when I think I have gotten some sort of answer, the basics come back, as it really isn't worth the bother. I just figure that the really steamed up way some people get themselves into, all in the name of what has been DONE to them, is just WHINING...but you and I know it's karma for them to get back, in the rather mean spirited fashion they see fit to deliver unto others..... is that enough?

Anyway, time to feed the kitty I think and make this dog do something. Current name seems to fluctuate around Yumi, or is it Umi, and occasionally Ranma. You can blame an eleven year old with an obsession for all things anime for that one. Netflix of late may as well be in Japanese for all the sense it's making these days.



A ton of needless worry ending soon
image credit



After all this public moaning, I know there are a lot worse off people, and I am going to be celebrating my head off Monday evening.

Saturday, October 04, 2003

Still hanging in there



Not dead, just amazingly warm after a bath

Still very still, but warming up slightly with a brand new one of these under it, and drinking just a little more. Not out of the bad place yet.....

Kittens, they are weak enough when they are normal, is this really fair?

Thursday, October 02, 2003

Lost....abandoned, but not alone any more..

Found this little thing, hardly able to walk due to the cold, and probably the rather spartan cardboard box with one sheet of newspaper in the bottom of it, someone had seen fit to leave in the parking lot of the local Pathmark. The thing was so cold it couldn't even run away, and was destined to be squished under one of the many cars zooming back and forth. Looks like another addition to the dog, two turtles, iguana, three hamsters, and five OTHER cats, this house is currently home to.

No name yet, suggestions welcome

Look, and er... don't tell anyone right, but I am secretly hoping we have to keep it. If you tell anyone I will never forgive you ok? I just don't DO the animal thing... what is happening to me? Mind you, I am enjoying the old black lab here along with the rest of the arc. It's like those scenes from the Muppet movies, at the start where they show you them getting up for their daily routine and then singing a big number at breakfast. Always someone, or more likely someTHING, to say hello, or good morning to.

Off to the vet tomorrow to get it all straigtened out hopefully. So there is still time for a watertight reason to be formulated and tested in readiness for decision time.

**UPDATE**
At 16:18 on January 1st 2017, Yumi (as she ended up being called) passed away quietly with us sitting right with her. We were so glad to have had her with us all these 13 years.

Bye Yumi, we're gonna miss you like mad.