Category Archives: Journal

Me. My Life. Stuff that happens.

Movie Meditations

I’ve watched a bunch of movies lately, partly because I’ve been sick but I’ve also just slipped into one of those moods. I mostly wanted to ruminate on horror movies but I realize that the number of people interested in such a subject is probably 1/32 the number of people who actually read this site which means roughly -25 people. So before I start talking to less than nobody, I should point out a movie that does not involve teenagers being stabbed in the spleen with a crowbar or whatever. I’m talking about “An Unfinished Life” with Robert Redford, Morgan Freeman and Jennifer Lopez.

I realize I kind of have to sell this movie because for one thing it has J.Lo in it which I fully understand would turn some people off to it right away but if you can forget all the Jenny From the Blockâ€“Benniferâ€“”Gigli”â€“Tabloid stuff for a second you might recall that she first hit a lot of people’s radars with a fine performance in a pretty good movie called “Out of Sight.” So regardless of anything else she can, when she bothers to, actually act. For another thing it’s a very low-key, quiet sort of movie that I can best describe as old-fashioned. There’s not a lot of high intensity happening here, the performances don’t involve people channeling dead celebrities and the most action you get is a short scene of an old man kicking a domestic abuser around a bit. It’s not even your average emotional drama where they play the tearjerker card half a dozen times to get the wimmin folk to break out the hankies.

And yet, it’s absorbing and it’s subtly funny and a bit touching but most of all it’s entertaining andâ€”how’s this for a shockâ€”when it’s over you just might feel better than you did before you started watching. I’m not guaranteeing you’ll love it, I’m just saying you might want to give it a shot because you might be surprised, pleasantly, like I was.

Okay, now let’s talk about movies with axe murders.

The Decline of Horror

There was a time when I would have gone as far as to say I was a fan of horror movies. Somewhere between my youthful fear of pretty much everything and my adult cynicism for everything else I absorbed cheesy slasher flicks and serials with a pretty impressive appetite. Part of it is that I really like special effects. Of course my favorite special effects are more of the Sci-Fi variety with spaceships and robotic warmachines but SF movies are usually expensive and tend to be event pictures which really don’t get made that often. But I like make-up effects, too, and since latex suits and red corn syrup are cheap, lots of horror movies get made. Special effects geeks have to either get used to droughts of new material to pore over, learn to live with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Segal or learn to appreciate horror movies.

The other part is that I think scary stuff is fun. The psychology of horror fans has been discussed a lot since people started paying to get frightened and it usually comes down to something like “we’d rather do it voluntarily in a way we know isn’t truly dangerous” and/or “the adrenaline rush from fear is addicting in a similar way to the pain of eating spicy food.” Whatever it is that makes people like to be safely frightened, count me among their number.

But lately I’ve gotten tired of horror. More than tired really, I’ve gotten just about downright sick of it. And it isn’t that it started scaring me more or even that it started scaring me less (although that’s sort of trueâ€”I’ll make more sense in a minute) it’s that horror has changed in recent years. Horror isn’t horror anymore, movies that are billed as genre flicks are becoming almost exclusively murder pictures. And that’s the opposite of what I like about horror movies.

I think about it like this: Graphic gore doesn’t really bug me in movies. It’s all special effects. And like I said before, I like the special effects. The thing is, I want there to be at least a passing stab made at giving those effects some kind of context. I want them to be the climax of a building suspense. I want them to be shocking or frightening or somethingâ€”anything except for what they’ve become which is numbing. I’m going to annoy some horror fans here and say that gore is not scary in and of itself. Gore without a sense of psychological fear is just… well, gross. And I’m going to take another stand and say that psychological fear wrought by putting some human villain behind the machete or scalpel or whatever is a different kind of horror than what I’m looking for.

Look, I know that people are sick and sadistic and twisted and capable of revoltingly unspeakable acts of cruelty against each other. I got it. If I need reminding, I can watch the nine o’clock news. So thanks but no thanks when it comes to movies whose only idea of what might be scary is some dude with a pitchfork or an axe. That’s not really all that scary, it’s just depressing. It’s also about as uncreative as you can get. As clear as I am on how stupidly evil people can be, I know everyone else is, too, including Mr. Screenwriter. So if that’s the best you can come up with: Spare me. Spare us.

Give me some supernatural terror. Give me Jason. Give me Freddy or zombies or ghosts or vampires or something. Come up with something new. Make a twist on something old. Bring me a giant mutant termite or a living doll or a rampaging possessed washing machine, anything. Let those things spatter fake blood all over your set and give you a reason to cast decapitated molds of your actor’s heads, but I can’t stand to watch another pointless murder shown without any hint of subtlety or even fun (quick hint: extra sadism does not equal fun) just to put another point on the make-up guys’ resume. Seriously. Count me out.

If you want to have a human killer, it’s called a mystery. Give me some suspense. Make me guess. Show me a character I can root for who is trying to figure out who it is or why they do it so they can stop it from happening. Don’t toss in some fourth-rate teen idol on the way to a career making bad Japanese soap commercials as a hapless stooge just running away for 45 minutes. If you want to do real horror then do it right, come up with a monster. Give me some camp, a little cheese and a few laughs. Make it fun and then turn off the lights and give me a creepy score as the pajama-clad heroine goes the wrong way up a flight of stairs.

Or do it good and give me some fiction I can sink my teeth into. Move me to the edge of my seat like in Alien. If you can’t write it well enough to suspend my disbelief then head back to community college and pick up your accounting degree ’cause this just ain’t your bag, man. Write me something scary, not something sad. Not something sick. I’m tired of it.

Okay, deep breath. Rant off. I feel better. Now maybe I should go work on that possessed washing machine story. Someone’s gotta show these idiots how it’s done.

Dog, Sick As A

I’ve spent the last couple of days suffering through some sort of bizarre springtime cold/flu thing which has been not just uncomfortable but put me far behind in terms of work and other things that need to get done. And I’m still not much better than I was yesterday, but I’ve dumped my workload on my co-workers enough this week that guilt alone dragged me out of bed and into rush hour traffic.

Of course it hasn’t been all bad. I played my way through Resident Evil 4 for a second time since after finishing Indigo Prophecy I was disappointed enough with the last 2/3rds of it that I needed to remind myself how video games can be, you know, good. Not that RE4 is flawless, but on a general comparison scale we’re talking about a stack of fifty dollar bills versus a bit of lint culled from one’s bellybutton.

The strange thing about that is I hardly ever play through games twice. Especially if I went all the way to the end the first time ’round. And you know, I wouldn’t be opposed to doing again. Part of the fun is that the game is roughly 6,000 times easier each time through since you keep all your weapons and money from the previous completion which in my case means I have fully upgraded shotguns, sniper rifles and .357 Magnums plus ample cash to burn on rocket launchers pretty much whenever. All of that means that the tough bad guys are, uh, not so much. The comedy of the week came when I wandered into a cave-like area and the game went to a cutscene of a vicious-looking baddie leaping down from a platform weilding a chainsaw that I just knew was going to be aimed at my neck. Normally these guys take several shots from the most powerful of guns, but as he approached me all Texas Massacre-style, I put one lone round into his shoulder and just happened to spin him off the cliff in a pirouette of anticlimax.

Comedy gold. Or, possibly the DayQuil. Take your pick.

Anyway, I didn’t stop by to ramble about games I beat a year ago, I actually came to express my enthusiasm for the announcement regarding the DS Lite. I had heard since the Lite was essentially flying off the shelves in Japan that NOA might take that as a sign that they had sorely underestimated the profit potential of the device and would introduce it to us with a price tag in the $200 neighborhood. That caused some consternation because as much as I’m eager to try some of these games I’m thinking that $200 goes a long way toward an XBox 360 or a Playstation 3. Heck, that’s even a pretty nifty dent in the price of a decent games-playing PC. But Nintendo proves once again that they really understand the handheld market and offer this tasty treat for a mere $129.

I have nothing but rampant speculation to back this up but I’m thinking the original DS will dip to $99 and by Christmas you will be able to snare one for $79 or so. Not sure why you’d want one of those clunkers, but to each his own.

Also, I’d like to point out that this is my favorite picture of Joel to date. Sleepy nephews are awesomely adorable.

All Teeth and Fins and Poor Demeanor

Let’s talk about the Sharks for a second. Wait, what?

Oh. Yes, again. We’re talking about the most legitimate Cup-contending team San Jose has seen yet. What else are we going to talk about?

So I was fairly harsh a few weeks back on several Sharks players. I got into a discussion with Lister and HB about some of these players the other day after the Anaheim game HB and I attended. It was your typical guy/sports conversation in which guy A posits controversial theory 1 and guys B and C argue vehmently over theory 1, possibly suggesting counter-theory 2 and generally questioning guy A’s sanity at every turn.

In this case my beefs were with Scott Thornton, Nils Ekman and a general mistrust of the Sharks’ defense. I understand Lister’s indignation: He’s been a Scott Thornton fan since he turned some guy’s face into hamburger a few years ago. They made a fairly strong case for Ekman’s role on the top line as being all about skating away from the puck and opening up ice for Cheechoo and Joe Thornton. And they suggested that I was being too hard on the young D.

My approach to sports fandom is with great cynicism. I’ve been that Great Believer sports fan in my younger days only to watch teams stumble and fail, often spectacularly. My response has been to continue hoping for the best while building a careful protective layer of criticism so when my team finally does succumb to idiocy all I need to is point and say, “See? Called it.”

But I must admit that Scott Thornton has had a quietly impressive series thus far and Ekman—aside from business as usual taking the worst possible penalties—has looked pretty good as well. In fact, since the first game the Sharks as a whole have looked good. Tuesday night they essentially ran amok on Nashville, only rescued from a blowout by some early acrobatics by Chris Mason. You could point to the short handed goal as a sign of weakness on the Sharks part, and indeed it was a boneheaded play but a couple of things rang true about it to me. One is that the Preds executed that 3-on-1 rush flawlessly. They took the D-man out of the play and used the late attacker to simply burn Toskala with a shot he had no chance to get. Second was that it looked more like a case of exhuberance to get on the board in front of the home crowd than a seriously broken play. Had the pinch not been quite as deep or the bounce not come right at that moment and things might have gone down differently. I’m not saying they deserved commendations for the play in the least, but aside from that play and two, perhaps three slip-ups behind their own net on defense and I thought the Sharks looked pretty unstoppable the whole game.

A couple of additional notes:

The Sharks cycle the puck like absolute madmen. But I feel like they haven’t quite figured out that the Preds have watched enough tape to realize that just possessing the puck won’t win games so they cover the passes and the Sharks control forever but only get a few halfhearted shots on net with no dynamite scoring chances for all the effort.
Note where two of the Sharks four goals came from: Rushing players taking the shot. Outshooting the Predators 40-17 is good, but when 25 of those shots come after three or four minutes of cycling and funky passes and the end result is pretty much right into Mason’s breadbasket, I mean, they could have peppered him with 55+ shots if they’d stopped horsing around down there and just fired pucks in.
Especially in need of more shooting: Power Play. I get so frustrated on 5-on-3 situations especially when they sit there and play catch. Hello!? You have two extra guys. Shoot.
The Avalanche have a 3-0 lead over Dallas. Edmonton has a 2-1 lead on Detroit, with Yzerman improbable for game four. Assuming Calgary goes on to beat Anaheim and the Sharks can finish off Nashville, San Jose will have home ice for round two versus Colorado. Benediction!
Of course, that would mean it was up to Edmonton to beat Calgary because while it would be a fun Western Conference finals rematch, I do not want to have to play the Flames at all this postseason. kthx.

More Hockey

Not had enough? Okay, check out this site with some of the year’s best goals. Note Jason Spezza’s slick move (and the utterly useless defense trailing the play) in the “October” clip.

So I was listening to the local sports talk station on the way to work the other day and they had this… “band” in there. It was pretty much two dudes with guitars and I think one of them was the co-host of the show. Anyway, they decided to do this cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Suzie Q” only they changed the lyrics to “Jon Cheechoo.” I was seriously embarrassed for them.

Misc Weirdness

I stumbled across an interesting comparison image showing the various iterations of Lara Croft from Tomb Raider. If nothing else it gives one a pretty good appreciation for the graphics advancements in modern games. I was also interested to note that Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation (IV) had the most unrealistic looking Lara of them all, in terms of her physical dimensions. Note how stupidly thin her waist is compared to her, uh, upper torso. I’m thinking spinal fracture city.

Here’s an article on the BBC (featuring dubious science) about cow farts. No, seriously.

Oh, and here’s a pretty nifty collection of links worthy of a bookmark featuring freeware to solve common computing problems. If you’re into the whole frugality thing.

Lastly, it seems that Nintendo has given the official name of their next-gen system: Wii. It’s pronounced “we.” I’m so not making any of this up.

Tales of the Customer Crazies: Volume Two

A couple of months ago I wrote about totally insane technical support customers. The condition continues. Witness this email service request I received from a customer:

Hello Support,
We are trying to configure our application servers to use our local authentication method. Using this method our users would log in with their network credentials which would map to application users that are configured to be guest accounts. Below I’ve attached instructions for the technical engineer to use with our requirements. That programmer/engineer will work with our analyst in order to set up our application to use the described authentication procedure. They will (shadow the database ID values in order to) configure this to allow employees to access the application. Then your analyst will do the testing of this system.
I need to receive the contact information for this programmer/analyst so that we can have our analyst contact them to develop an action plan. Please respond as soon as possible as I will be out of the office tomorrow (I’ll be returning Tuesday, September 6).
Thanks,

In case it wasn’t stupefying enough, let me clarify the point that this was sent to me. My role (in fact my job title) is Technical Support Analyst and as far as any customer is concerned, I’m the only person they should expect to deal with when they contact our support center. Sure, some issues get escalated to senior engineers, but there is no such thing as a “programmer/engineer” or a “programmer/analyst” who would ever contact a customer to implement a customized login routine.

We do have a consultation team which charges like any other on-site consultant to do this sort of work, but it most definitely isn’t covered under anyone’s support contract. Also note that of the five or so different support contracts we offer, they have one of the two cheapest which means that their expectations ought to be miles below what they seem to be expressing here.

Most baffling is the last line. September 6th? As in four and half months from now? I had a very hard time not replying with, “Hey, we’ll work on this when you get back from your trip to the moon.” And she prefaces the statement with “I’ll be out of the office tomorrow.”

I mean, that’s like saying, “I’m taking a fifteen-minute break. I’ll be back next Thursday.”

We often have problems on the support floor because our product is massive and it interacts with so many other products. For example, the team I work on is charged with supporting the web client portion of the software, but in order for it to work it requires a Webserver capable of processing Java Server Pages (JSP). This server must then be accessed by a web browser. So at minimum the product I support requires the use of a third-party webserver, a third-party servlet engine (JSP processor), the OS the webserver is installed on, and a third-party web browser. Oh, and the server needs to run Java (also third-party). On top of this we support a variety of each: Apache, IIS, WebSphere for webservers; Tomcat, ServletExec, JBoss for servlet engines; Red Hat, Solaris, Windows 2000/2003 for server OS; Mozilla and IE for browsers and the list actually goes on.

Technically we’re not required to troubleshoot other companies’ products, but we often do it when it’s clear that the problem isn’t really a bug with the other software but a configuration issue between their stuff and ours. This translates into a necessity for support personnel to understand a lot of various software packages. But sometimes customers don’t quite see the distinction.

Me: Tech support, how can I help you?
Customer: Hi, I’m having trouble with one of our applications. It looks funny.
Me: Okay, what are you seeing?
Customer: Some of the tabs are overlapping. You can’t even click the ones that are behind there.
Me: Hm, I see. Do you have any customized stylesheets applied to your IE settings?
Customer: Oh, I don’t use IE.
Me: Ah. I understand. Well, you can still use custom styles in Mozilla. Do you have any of those applied?
Customer: I’m not using Mozilla, either.
Me: …Okay. What are you using currently?
Customer: (proudly) Opera!
Me: Uh, yeah. Sir, we don’t support Opera.
Customer: Why not?
Me: Honestly, sir, I’m not sure. Probably because it has such a small market share that it’s not economically feasible for engineering to—
Customer: I don’t care about your economics! I’ve been using Opera for years, and I’m not about to stop now! We’ve standardized on Opera!
Me: I sympathize, sir, but—
Customer: I’ve never had a problem with your product and Opera. Don’t tell me it’s not supported!
Me: But I thought you just called because you were having a problem with Opera. And it isn’t supported.
Customer: Can’t you just download Opera and test it out to see if you get the same glitch?
Me: Well, I suppose I could, but—
Customer: Great! Let me know what you find out.
Me: The problem is that even if I confirm the problem, there’s nothing I can do about it. Engineering won’t fix anything to correct a problem with an unsupported third-party application. That’s what unsupported means.
Customer: Just look at it. You’ll see what I’m talking about.
Me: Couldn’t you have just shot me in the chest instead, sir?

Of course, sometimes it’s not just the customers that lose their bearings. We have a system that interfaces our telephones with our computers so we can track and correctly assign incoming calls. It works by doing a call transfer to the extention set via software preference whenever we pull a live call from a community queue. I worked from home last week so while I was there I had to change the extention preference to my home number so calls I pulled would come to me.

A couple of days later I was back in the office and a call came in. I pulled it from the queue and sat patiently with my little headset ready, waiting for the phone to ring. Nothing.

Several minutes later I got an IM from Nik:

nchamilton: There’s someone on the phone for you.
ironsoap: Uh, take a message?
nchamilton: It’s one of your customers.
ironsoap: ??
nchamilton: His ticket number is AC1566012.
ironsoap: lol

When I finally got it all straightened out, I waited for the call to show up in the queue. Finally it did and the queue info listed the call had originated from a contract number associated with the Central Intelligence Agency.

When I pulled the call and talked to the guy, he acted like nothing at all had happened.

It was like he already knew.

Rebarbative Rally

I’m lazy today but I want to update. This sounds like a job for…

Bullet Points

I attended a corporate meeting in San Francisco today. It was an hour bus trip (one-way) with some company provided snacks of dubious quality as an incentive. Unlike the Microsoft company rallies you see in famous internet clips, this was less of a pep rally as a sort of drab, state-of-the-company report. Turns out, the state of our company is “pretty okay, probably.” Inspiring!
I’ll count it as acceptable that the Sharks managed to draw a tie from the opening road games in their series. That basically puts them in a best-of-five with home ice advanatge. What I don’t find acceptable is the officiating so far in the series. It’s not that they call too many penalties (although I’d prefer a lot fewer, thanks) it’s more that they are so mind-numbingly inconsistent with them. Both ways. Each team has alternated in the young series from penalty box parade to getting away with murder. The series is tied but I’d basically give both games to the refs had the Predators managed to make the game yesterday even remotely interesting. As it is I’d say the Sharks were robbed of any legitimate chance to win on Friday and the Preds had the wind sucked out of their sails by a bunch of really random calls on Sunday. Going forward with the series I really hope these refs can get out of the way and let the teams decide who wins.
I caught Silent Hill on Saturday with HB since both of us are pretty big fans of the game(s). The movie wasn’t preview screened for critics (bad sign) and got a lot of bad reviews from those who made the effort to give it a rating. I don’t necessarily disagree with some of the criticisms (bad dialogue, some questionable acting, too much/not enough exposition) but I think considering the source material games are basically incomprehensible as well and horror movies aren’t exactly the place to go to see fine Academy Award-worthy performances that it did what it was trying to do pretty admirably. At the very least I was entertained for a couple of hours. I can’t exactly recommend it, but I wasn’t sorry to have seen it. What I was sorry about was spending $4.00 for a small diet soda that tasted like regular soda that had been sitting in melted ice for about eight hours.
I went over to HB’s place on Friday to catch the game and while I was there I tried to do a bit more work on the network I messed up. I was able to determine that their net connection was fine by plugging the ethernet cable right into my laptop so with no other troubleshooting steps revealing any useful information I diagnosed the AirPort Express as having some sort of issue; possibly a faulty ethernet connector. After we caught the movie we headed over to the nearest Apple store for our appointment at the Genius Bar to have it looked at. The Genius plugged it in and it worked fine for him which left us back at square one. I had to take Nik out to Whimsy‘s place for some tea party/Mary Kay pusher meeting so I couldn’t follow through with the new info, but HB called and said that he got home and just unplugged everything and plugged it all back in and stuff started working again so the final diagnosis is: Who knows? Man I love computers.
We caught the end of The Next Food Network Star last night and Guy won, which is what I was hoping. The funny thing is, I don’t know that I’d actually watch his show or not because I get kind of tired of generic in-studio cooking shows, but at least that unpleasantly-shaped, uncomfortably effeminate goofball Reggie didn’t win. Seriously, dude, dry up the waterworks. Even the chicks weren’t as weepy as you.
I picked up Indigo Prophecy for the XBox over the weekend as well. It’s a very curious game that I knew only from a comment made by a friend and the description on the back of the box so I had very few preconceptions going in. It works like an adventure game, mostly, where you wander around and try to figure out what to do. Usually it isn’t too hard to determine and the story is cinematic and intriguing enough to keep you pushing along, trying not to get stuck up in the game so the story can fight its way out. The strange thing is that all the “gameplay” elements are very abstracted from the action on the screen, such that action sequences are handled via a series of rythym game-style follow-the-leader joystick movements. In this way it’s kind of like Dragon’s Lair, which is sort of unfortunate because it kinda pulls you out of the action and forces you to think about something other than what your avatar is actually doing. It works in certain cases like when playing a guitar (the rythym element makes logical sense there) but when fleeing from a horde of mutated insects or kickboxing a punching bag it feels divorced from what the character is actually doing. Also failing in certain tasks merely ends the game forcing a restart which, for a game that is trying really hard to be an interactive movie, feels forced and simply reminds the player that—despite the sheen of freedom—they really are still on a rail. What’s almost the most frustrating is that I’m really interested in the story but I feel like I’m being needlessly thrust into interaction where it doesn’t add to the enjoyment. I’d almost rather be watching Indigo Prophecy: The Movie than guiding these characters through their morning shower routines and whatever.
Nik and I stopped by the mall for a bit yesterday so I could look for a plain black zip-up sweatshirt now that the weather is finally threatening to get nicer. My agitation at being shut down in this endeavour has led me to a brilliant business idea: Normal Clothes. I’d sell plain T-shirts without any Socially Inexcusable If Spoken Aloud and Largely Offensive Statements Played For Laughs Because They Appear On a T-Shirt; clothing that doesn’t force one to become a walking billboard; jeans that don’t cost enough to dent the National Deficit and seasonal clothing available year-round because weather doesn’t really care about our human calendars. Okay so maybe as a business it isn’t brilliant, but if such an establishment existed, I’d be their #1 customer.
I did find a pair of sunglasses that were relatively cheap. Of course, they were broken and I had to take them back.
Whomever said that shopping was therapeutic does not own a dictionary and clearly mistook “therapeutic” to mean “capable of inducing suicide.”

Dee Zyne

I got a chance to work from home today in an effort to figure out how to get our car back. It was cool because while I’ve sorta-kinda worked while not actually being in the office before, this was the first time it actually counted as a day of work. That my boss was cool enough to let me do this already (I mean, I’ve only been working this job for about four months) either means he’s got a lot of faith in me or he has no idea how clueless I am.

At least in this case I’ve done the self-motivation thing before so I’m not concerned about my own performance in that regard, it’s more of an issue where I really would like for this to be something I can continue to do on a semi-regular basis. In order for that to happen I need to show that not only will working from home not be problematic but also that my overall skill in my job is continuing to improve despite being away from the office on occasion.

Of course in terms of the car situation, there was some miscommunication with the insurance company and I’m still not completely clear how we’re supposed to get it back in our possession (I thought I would need to go with Nik to the tow yard it’s being stored in so one of us could drive it home). So in the end my working from home was not strictly vital but it turned out to be a good thing that I was here to help Nik sort out the confusion with AAA.

Anyway, the only other thing I thought might be of interest is that I’m working on a new design for the site. You can see a preview here if you like and I’m happy to get any feedback you might have.

Network? Yeah, Right

For someone who is ostensibly a computer geek and who makes a living solving computer-related issues, there are few things more frustrating than running into a stumper which negatively impacts someone I care about. Last night Nik and I went to HB and Gin‘s place for some barbecued steak to celebrate the first reasonable weather day in what feels like forever. The food was good, the company was excellent (as always) but after dinner Gin suggested that I give her new Sony Viao laptop a look to see if I could get her on their wireless network.

Troubleshooting network issues, especially wireless network issues, is not exactly my forte. It’s also not exactly my idea of a fun evening, but HB and Gin are exceptions to the rule because a) they seem to have mostly converted to Mac folk which I certainly respect and admire and b) they’re good people who had just fed me a marvelous dinner. What was I going to say, “Yeah, thanks for the steak but I’m not interested”? Hardly.

It became pretty clear off the bat that the Belkin PCMCIA wireless adapter Gin had and its associated software was designed by feral orangutans so it wasn’t going to be easy. But I forged ahead, fiddling with the connection settings, SSID keys and whatnot until I got to the point where it should have been online and working but I could get no traffic coming in from the Internets. Puzzled, I tried to transfer some of the settings I found on their AirPort Express configuration over to the laptop for a while and while I was doing that HB decided to show Nik a website he had found.

As he fired up Safari, it said there was no connection to the Internet there, either. So switching gears to troubleshoot the Mac, I started investigating. It was possibly the weirdest network issue I’ve ever seen: Everything was fine. The internal network worked just dandy, with the APE receiving the signal from iTunes to play over the stereo and the AirPort status was listed as on, active and connected to the Internet. Yet there was no signal coming from the outside world. Gin even kindly called Comcast to see if there was some freaky, coincidental outage at that moment but, alas, no.

What really baked my noodle was that I hadn’t touched a single thing on the Mac. Other than opening the configuration panels for the APE to look at the settings, none of them had been messed with. It made no sense. After an hour or more of frustrating trial-and-error, I was pretty grouchy, Gin seemed to be concerned for my sanity, HB was asleep on the couch and Nik was gently urging me to give up so she could head home. Somehow leaving their network in worse shape than I had found it when they had merely requested some help seemed very rude.

Eventually, on the verge of doing what inevitably leads to nightmarish support calls and wiping everything clean and starting from scratch, Nik and Gin finally talked me in off the proverbial ledge and promised that it wasn’t a big deal. After all, they reasoned, I was coming back on Friday to watch the playoff game so I could maybe sleep on it, get some inspiration or look up some online help guides and get it all back to normal in a jiffy. Unconvinced but now thinking clearly enough to not desire any kind of major catastrophe wrought by frustration, I conceded.

The funny thing about being a geek with a certain sense of pride in the moniker, I didn’t sleep well last night as my dreams were plagued by uncooperative network adapters who, for whatever reason, were semi-sentient and acted vaguely like domestic chickens.

No Gnus is Good Gnus

CALIFORNIA—Law enforcement officals noted today that a stolen 1997 Saturn SC2 was found only a few miles from the scene of the crime, parked near an elementary school. It is reportedly in rather good condition, parked with the doors locked. It has been towed to an undisclosed location for review by the owners’ insurance adjuster.

Short Attention Span Theat—Hey, Who Has Some Gum?

So I caught the Sharks game on Saturday with HB, which was a lot of fun. Afterward we convinced Nik and Gin to drive out and meet us at Lister and Whimsy’s pad with a cameo by RR for a fairly raucous but tasty trip to a local steakhouse.
So, Saturday was the second game I managed to attend this year. Jonathan Cheechoo scored a hat trick at the game I went to see for my birthday back in January. Cheechoo scored a hat trick on Saturday, too. I’m only saying.
Sadly after Saturday’s winning performance and eighth victory in a row, they basically rolled over on Monday for the Kings whom they most certainly could have beaten. Yeah, the game didn’t matter for much and no one wants to go out with an injury in a “pointless” game (anyone else get kind of jittery when Cheechoo went down from that collision?) but getting shut out? Not a good note to start the postseason on, I’m afraid.
So Thornton and Cheechoo managed, despite getting blanked by the Kings, to take home some league hardware for points and goals scored, respectively. Congrats to them both as I think they very much deserved to win. I doubt Thornton will be able to shine bright enough for the east coasters to have a legitimate shot at the Hart trophy for league MVP, but we can all rest assured that he is the most valuable player, trophy or no.
You know, ever since I saw Waking Life I’ve thought that animation-over-film is a very nifty effect. Check out the trailer for the upcoming film A Scanner Darkly and tell me that doesn’t look super rad.
I rented Tomb Raider: Legend over the weekend. Of course by weekend I mean “Monday I took off because I couldn’t stomach the thought of working another five days in a row,” but whatever. I beat the game in a day which suggests that the game is way too short (which it is) but does not suggest much about the quality of that brief experience. Overall I’d say Lara has her mojo back, although the combat needed more slow-mo effects than the one or two moves that provided it because those involved getting all up in some thug’s face (putting one scantily-clad adventurer in rather perilous circumstances). The story was a bit hard to follow since I haven’t completed a Tomb Raider game… uh… ever, I think. And I haven’t even picked one up since the Sega Dreamcast days so, you know, it’s been a couple of weeks. The fun factor of the puzzles and the visuals are quite nice but I really feel sorry for anyone who actually dropped the coin on the game. Ten hours. At most.
Beating TRL so quickly got me thinking about the sweet spot for game purchases. Basically it’s like this: Either you buy a game hoping you’ll play it for months and months and never really bother trading it in (lots of sports games fall into this category, as do really good multiplayer games like Counter-Strike and Halo 2) or you hope that you buy a popular game and manage to push through it in a reasonably short amount of time—but not so short that you would have been better served just renting it. For example, a $50 game will, within about a month of release, get you maybe $35 in trade-in value. Which means you take a $15 hit from buying the game. If you can make up that amount of gameplay in a shorter amount of time than it would take you to rack up $15 in rental fees, you come out on top. Since most rentals are about $1 per day, you’re looking at games that can be finished (without getting too stuck in one spot) in roughly 30 hours.
Finding 30 hours in a few weeks to devote to a video game… you’re on your own there.
The one bad thing about the car being found (okay, not bad per se, but sort of sad) is that the rental car we got from the insurance company, despite being a crummy Ford, is much nicer than the Saturn. It even has a CD player that understands MP3 discs. Mmmm…. 700MB commute goodness…
Public Service Annoucement: Roast Beef + Beano’s Horseradish Sauce = teh yum.
Also tasty: Woebler’s Spicy Mustard. Semi-related lameness: Woebler’s does not have a web presence to speak of.
Finally, Ryan points out that last week was the first time, at least since switching to the 888.net server, that I’ve updated five days in a row. Nice eye, Ryan. In other news, my buddy Ryan has no life. Film at 11.

On a Clear Day

So in case you didn’t quite catch the drift from the “More Stuff I Could Do Without” post a couple of days ago, my car got stolen. I had parked it in the train station lot, roughly as far from the one exit as you can get, underneath one of the “security” cameras’ lens. The car was locked and there was nothing except an ice scraper and my iPod’s $8.00 tape adapter visible inside the car. Come to think of it, ever since last year’s window-smashing burglary I haven’t kept much of anything in there so that was pretty much the extent of it.

There was no glass in the vacant space the Saturn had once occupied so they must have jimmied the lock. The responding officer said that they were having an 85% recovery rate in the city (but no guarantees on condition of recovered vehicles) and most cars were located within 24-72 hours. As of tonight at about 5:30 pm it will have been 72 hours.

I’ll be honest with you: Getting ripped off really sucks. But you know, it could be a lot worse. The insurance company contacted us and said that our insurance wouldn’t go up at all since it is a no-fault incident. They’re going to wait 15 days to see if the car can be recovered and if so, they’ll evaluate it for damage and do the payout on that or if it isn’t located they’ll pay “fair market price” (whatever that means) to replace it. Plus we owned the car outright. I’m not sure what would have happened if we were still making payments on it, but I can’t think it would have been all that great.

Besides, I was about ready to trade that car in anyway; the only thing holding me back was that we did own the Saturn and I wasn’t crazy about taking on another car payment just yet. As of right now we’re a bit unclear on how Nikki’s physical state will be once her eligibility for temporary disability runs out so there’s some question marks about what she’ll do for income. That impacted the choice to not trade in the car sooner but in this case it may also impact how we proceed from here. If Nik doesn’t get well enough to go to school (something she’s talked about) or get a regular-type job, she may have to find some kind of work-at-home plan which would actually mean we might not need a second car for a little while since I have clear access to work via the train/bus and it’s (hopefully) not a vile imposition on Nik to drop me off and pick me up from the station two blocks away.

Of course I’m a bit miffed at the train company at the moment. I really don’t understand why, considering how much they charge for fares, they can’t have some better security. In a twist of Murphy’s Law, I got one of those annoying fliers stuck under my windshield wiper at the end of last week saying they had been seeing a rash of break-ins and vandalisms in the park and ride lot lately and were planning a community access meeting for the 17th of this month. Yesterday they posted them on people’s windows again, this time mentioning car theft. I’m pretty sure I know what spurred that particular action. As expected, when I got the flier last week I threw it away, having no intention of wasting a weeknight at some boring safety meeting. Mea culpa (that’s latin for “my bad”).

So it goes.

Rain on the Parade

I’ve already apologized for not believing the Sharks would make the playoffs. But now that they are in there, I have expectations. Remember that we’re talking about the defending Pacific Division Champs who were within arms reach of going to the Stanley Cup Finals the last time we saw them actually, you know, play.

I’m not asking for a Cup victory this year. The team is still very young. However, we know that they can be a phenomenal team—when they want to be. So all I’m asking for is forward progress. They don’t have to win the Cup this year, but I want them to make it at least to the third round if not the Finals. Next year I’ll expect a Cup.

So here’s what concerns me: I want this team to be legitimate contenders for the Stanley Cup, even if they may be a bit too green to actually take it home just yet, and there are a couple of parts of their game (as a team) that is going to have to get better in a hurry if they’re going to beat the Dallases and Detroits of the postseason.

First though, a couple of things that suggest the Sharks need to be thinking “Win this year” and not be as forgiving of themselves as I am prepared to be. One is that they are a remarkably healthy team. Where other teams are struggling with aging veterans fighting off nagging injuries (Hi, Hasek!), the Sharks have missed very few games due to injury and the ones they have missed have been from lower-priority role-players like Parker and Thornton (Scott). The other is that they have a psychological advantage right now, coming off a dramatic uphill climb into the playoffs, breaking franchise records right and left and generally having the right people hot at the right time.

Still, all is not roses. The Sharks won last night but I was very, very concerned by some of the stuff I saw there. Observe:

Evgeni Nabokov: Dude. Dude. The guy is listed as having 17 saves, but basically all those saves were little weakling “shots” or low percentage dinks on unlikely scoring chances. Basically, those were 17 easy saves. On the other hand, every time the Canucks got even a half-decent shot on net, it went in. Nabby has to make some key saves. He didn’t. He was spared because the Sharks played pretty good defense most of the night (at least in terms of limiting scoring chances) but when I start wishing Toskala was in the net because Nabokov is looking uncomfortable in comparison, something’s wrong with your number one guy.
Which brings up an interesting point: Toskala has been hot lately, there is no doubt. But is this Vesa’s push to be a marquee name, or is it a temporary insanity that will come crashing back down at the exact wrong time? I want to believe that he’s just come into his own enough that whether Nabby is on his game or not the Sharks could go all the way, but I find it difficult. If Toskala has a postseason meltdown, I’m not confident that Evgeni Nabokov is going to come to the rescue.
The Sharks played ugly. Coyotes ugly. I’m sorry but that Ekman goal was a kick. Whether he made the kicking motion before it went in or after it hit his skate, the replay was clear that he intended to kick that puck in, and to me that should not be a goal. Why look a gift horse in the mouth? Because hockey refs believe in karma, and if you think this won’t come back to bite the Sharks in the tailfin later, you’re wrong. Plus you have to imagine how differently this game might have gone if that goal doesn’t count. If that’s the case, then Carle’s third-period goal only draws the tie with 8:36 left and Vancouver doesn’t have to pull Auld out at all. Remember that Vancouver only needed a tie to maintain their playoff hopes. Without the empty net, Cheechoo doesn’t score and the game goes to overtime. I’m just saying.
Never mind the kick-in goal, the Sharks got away with murder out there. I saw Joe Thornton on I believe the empty net goal hook his man and drag himself up into better body position before even trying to move his feet. It was like he was water-skiing. No call, and San Jose gets a goal. Patrick Marleau got called for a penalty in this game and that’s only happened about 12 times all year. It was embarrassing to watch and if I’m a Canucks fan I’m livid right now at the officiating in a critical game. Admittedly, Vancouver didn’t exactly lose because of the refs (they lost because they couldn’t solve Joe Thornton) but it certainly would have been a different game with some tighter work from the refs.
I appreciate the fact that the power play has put up a lot of points for San Jose lately. It has certainly made their seven-game win streak possible. But the Sharks typically have four or more extra power play chances than their opponent because they (usually) play a much more disciplined game. Why are games being this close? I think it’s because the Sharks power play hasn’t been all that phenomenal, it’s just a matter of probability. Get enough man advantage time and eventually something will allow you to score. Compare that to the fact that while not often penalized, it seems like every time they are down a man, the Sharks get scored on unless their netminder comes up big. What happened to the dangerous short-handed team from last season?
Was it just me or did Joe seem like he really wanted to score an actual goal last night? Is he getting sick of playing the set-up man? I don’t think I’ve ever seen him shoot that much. Okay, I guess that’s not a concern but it did kind of make me think that the Sharks didn’t really take last night very seriously until it was getting late in the game. Kind of a “yeah, let Joe shoot. What difference does it make?”
The difference, of course, being whether or not the Sharks have to play Calgary (or, more specifically, Mikka Kiprusoff) whom they are 1-3 against this season, or Nashville (minus Tomas Vokoun) which they are a slightly better 2-2 against. That might not seem like much difference either way, but when you consider that San Jose has lost to Calgary twice since Joe Thornton’s arrival on the scene and they actually beat Nashville back in November (one of two wins that whole month) plus again last month and I’d say San Jose vs. Nashville would be a very good thing for the Sharks. Plus that would put them into a position where if they did have to meet Detroit in the playoffs, it wouldn’t be until the conference championships after that veteran team had gone through two rounds already. Given the Sharks’ relative youthfulness, that’s about as much as you can ask for. Well, except for having the Red Wings knocked out by an earlier opponent.

Are Pee Gee

I was thinking about Final Fantasy games earlier today. I’m… really not sure why. But then I noticed that Nintendo has released Final Fantasy IV Advance and I thought to myself, “You know, I never played through that one.” Of course it was originally released in the US for the Super Nintendo as Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy VI was released here as FFIII until everyone came to their senses and skipped to naming them the same as they were in Japan upon Final Fantasy VII’s release. Since then it seems there has been a push to go back and re-name everything according to the Japanese numberings. All of which has done little except confuse the heck out of everyone.

But anyway, I was researching a bit and it looks like they have Final Fantasy I & II on one GBA cart; Final Fantasy III coming out for the DS soon; the previously mentioned IV for GBA and I noticed a page for Final Fantasy VI Advance but the only information I could find about it from some Googling was that it is projected for a Q2 2006 release… in Japan. So maybe it will be out around Christmas in the US?

Either way I think that I might see if I can find a used copy of FFIV Advance and/or I & II so that by the time the DS Lite comes out in the States next month I can have III on the backburner in case they delay the release of VI, which is what I really want to play on the GBA.

Here’s something else that struck me as odd: I don’t think I’ve ever finished a Final Fantasy game except for the very first one. I didn’t play the US FFII because my brother and I didn’t get a SNES until III was almost out (by that time FFII was so yesterday). I played the heck out of III, but I was competing with Scott, Dr. Mac and one of Scott’s friends for battery-save space and I think eventually my game got erased by “accident” when I was near the end. I didn’t have the patience to push back through.

Dr. Mac and I split the cost of VII and took turns playing it when we were roommates out in Texas, but during the game’s extended final sequence, I used my one save mechanism way too early in the proceedings and by the time I got to the final boss my supplies were tapped, my party was weakened and I worked into a three hour stalemate with the end guy. Facing the prospect of having to go back through roughly five hours of game to try again, I tossed in the towel instead. VIII, IX and X I tried and thought were so weak as to not warrant the effort. I didn’t even bother with X-2 or XI. I’ve also put in a stupid number of hours playing Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, but never bothered to get around to advancing the story toward the end: I just like levelling up my guys and looking for secret weapons to add new attacks.

Maybe they keep making the “Final” Fantasies because I never see the end! I guess it can’t be final if it’s never finished…

More Stuff I Could Do Without

Soulless automatons that take other people’s stuff.
Having to call my wife and say, “Can you pick me up? The car’s been stolen.”
Waiting for thirty minutes in the cold drizzle for the crack “Community Enforcement” squad to arrive and take my statement regarding stolen car.
Realizing crack “Community Enforcement” squad consists of one fat pseudo-cop in a pickup, weilding a clipboard.
Insurance company phone trees.
Repeating identical information five or six times to various people who would save everyone a lot of time if they communicated amongst themselves.
Waiting for callbacks.
Companies that are too cheap to install legitimate security devices, choosing instead to invest in such winning—and effective!—concepts as the “dummy camera.”
Having to wake up a peacefully slumbering spouse to take me to train station due to aforementioned automaton’s actions.
Train delays.
Forgetting my iPod and having to listen to crass, exaggerated conversations from fellow train passengers about obviously fictional sexual conquests.
A lack of ability to destroy people with my mind.
Perpetual rain in “sunny” California.
Rain.
California.
Bus drivers that leave early and abandon daily passengers.
Bus drivers that operate their large, unweildy vehicles as though they were involved in some manner of Nascar event in an effort to compensate for previously mentioned delays.
Fearing for my life prior to 7:30 am.
Being late to work due to forces beyond my control.
Lateness that causes irreparable schedule shifts resulting in missed meals.
Realizing it’s going to be a bad day prior to 8:00 am.
Thinking it can’t get any worse prior to 9:30 am.
Being proven wrong.

The Adventure of Links

A few days ago I mentioned—almost in passing—Apple’s Boot Camp. As expected whenever Apple does, well, anything the Internets have been abuzz with punditry. First off I’d like to direct your attention to the haters, starting with CNet Australia’s Asher Moses’ piece, “Bunk Camp: Apple Gets It Wrong.” It bears mentioning that Moses’ article spawed from another CNet tidbit from the “Well Hello Duh” files titled “Dare I Say This Aloud? Boot Camp is a Gimmick.”

I realize that, coming from me, it may be difficult to reconcile that I might take exception to Moses’ arguments. But note that I don’t buy into just everything Apple does; in fact up until the Boot Camp announcement I was pretty underwhelmed by the whole Intel switch. I’m the first to admit that Apple has its faults; it is only that they are capable of really impressive technology and occasionally accomplish leaps forward in consumer products that makes me a “Mac Guy.” This is not an apology, just a clarification.

But let me cut to the point here. After rambling on for a while about how Boot Camp requires a reboot to use the other operating system (duh), he says:

Rather than enticing existing Windows XP users to switch, Boot Camp will be primarily attractive to current OS X users that are lusting after certain Windows XP applications, such as games. This makes sense—they’re already accustomed to performing most tasks on OS X, and only need to switch over to Windows when they feel the urge to game.

Once again, I reiterate. “Well, duh!” What all these XP adherents completely fail (possibly due to blissful ignorance, possibly because of untreated fevers) to grasp is that while Windows and Linux folk continue to preach about the invisibility of operating systems and the apathy of the average consumer to what actually runs the programs they need, OS X users are smug in their knowledge that an OS doesn’t have to be much of anything but when it is a smooth, well designed program in itself it makes using all those other programs so much more pleasant.

Does Moses honestly think the 3% of computer users who choose Macs put up with idiot web designers, incompatibility, sluggish game support, expensive hardware from a single manufacturer and the constant badgering by the other 97% just so we can be “different?” Of course not. We know something about what it is like to use a system that works. I was talking to HB the other day about his switching experience and he noted, “What’s strange is that I’m so used to Windows and how everything is convoluted and takes 400 tries to get it right that when I try to do something new on the Mac, I spend a lot of time trying all the hard ways first only to eventually figure out that it’s the easiest thing in the world.” And he’s right: On OS X, simple things are simple. It’s usually only the fact that we’ve been trained for years by Microsoft that simple things are a pain in the neck that makes using a Mac challenging. It’s not the system design, it’s years of poor conditioning.

So no, it doesn’t matter that Boot Camp is a gimmick or that it could be better if it was some sort of virtual machine. Moses’ “thesis” seems to be that Boot Camp should have been a virtual machine. Listen to the madness:

To most users, the operating system is simply a means to an end—a basis for running their favourite applications. So the real potential lies in allowing Windows XP to be run inside Mac OS X, enabling users to execute Windows and Mac applications side-by-side without rebooting. This day could be closer than you think, too, thanks to a technology called virtualisation.

Oh really? Closer than I think? Like how about, I dunno, years ago?

The whole point is that VMs are slow. You can’t run games in virtual machines because they need full, uninterrupted access to the system resources. VMs are cool, don’t get me wrong, but being able to dual-boot is a huge bonus that has been a pipe dream for people who actually, you know, have a clue as to what they’re talking about for a long time. I mean, if you want to nitpick Boot Camp, maybe pick on something that is actually a problem.

Bullet the Blue Links

Why don’t spiders spin when dangling from a single strand of web? Scientists don’t know, either. They’re trying to figure it out, though.
Know what would be awesome? Buying a $500 graphics card that will be obsolete in 10 months. Man I love that.
I admit that while the 10% or whatever that they take is kind of atrocious, I really dig those little Coinstar machines. Now they do iTunes music cards, which is kind of pointless but cool anyway. Honestly if it weren’t for the fact that we have to use quarters to do our laundry I bet I could finance a vacation with the amount of spare change we collect in a month.
Since “controversial” usually means “tasteless,” this article on GamePro about the most controversial print ads for video games shouldn’t be much of a mystery: It’s tasteless. Kids, don’t click that link! The funny thing is I remember seeing all but the Gameshark example (and honestly, aside from her outfit being fairly skimpy I don’t see the big deal there) and in every case thinking, “Ooh, someone’s going to get a nasty letter for that.” I totally called it.
You know, the more I hear about what Nintendo is doing with the DS, the more impressed I am. Downloadable content? For free? Sure! Now they have a locator for the Download Stations. Sweet.
Nik pointed me to an interesting article yesterday about the offensiveness of the word “midget” referring to people with dwarfism. This is somewhat intriguing to me because after watching the first episode of F/X’s “Black. White.” a few weeks ago Nik and I were talking about what gives words their power: Is it the words and the concepts behind them from the perspective of the speaker or is it the weight and impact granted them by the listener? Discuss.

Cinematheque

If you were to say that I’m a fairly rabid consumer of entertainment in the sense that rags like “Entertainment Weekly” and the E! network use the word, you would not be incorrect. Music, movies, TV, books: These are my launchpads for shared experiences, backdrops to lively discussions and time-markers for set pieces of my life. I devour this stuff because it is pop art, accessible at times and utterly repulsive at others, its whole point is to be fascinating and the way in which it defines its terms must be revealed by the interaction between creator and observer.

I don’t know, it’s a curious interaction and I keep investigating it because, partly, I know that it is a common thing to devote time persuing and the mentality behind lifting what amounts to disposable artistic creation onto revered platforms is intrisically (or perhaps morbidly) engaging but also because that process itself occasionally creates things that I feel are not without value in their own right.

Consider that on one hand you have a movie like Fahrenheit 9/11 which sets its agenda as something less than art (at least art for its own sake) and something more than escapism: It is a vessel for a message (nevermind the message itself for now, you can substitute any politically charged movie/documentary here). On the other hand you have a film like Sahara which has very little (if any) aspirations to make a statement about anything but which is determined to be escapism at all costs. Then you can look at something like Waking Life which perhaps struggles as a cohesive narrative film (therefore eschewing escapism) and perhaps touches briefly on a message it wants to send but is so wrapped up in being pure art that it ends up being only truly remarkable when other contexts can be set aside.

Occasionally you may find a film that has something to say, does so with a sense of artistic style and manages to entertain at the same time. These are rare films, rarer television shows, and usually interpretive in terms of how well a given book or piece of music achieves this goal, assuming it was ever a goal at all.

I’m not trying to say anything, really, I’m just pointing out why I like entertainment. Searching for the elusive example of the boldly artistic, thought-provoking example of pop culture that also manages to be something you really want to experience versus doing so because you feel like, culturally, you ought to—it’s pretty fun.

King Kong

I’m pretty sure I’ve already bemoaned the fact that I don’t get out to the theater too often. Despite the fact that most modern movie megaplexes are flawed operations completely worthy of the scorn heaped on them, I still like going to the movies. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that while I don’t mind watching DVDs at home, I don’t exactly have some awe-inspiring home theater set up going. Who knows. But I sorta like seeing big action flicks on the big screen. Stuff like comedies or talking head dramas I can certainly wait to see at home. I mean, what difference does it make? But there is something really cool about watching an explosion on a 40 foot screen instead of my little 36″ TV, you know?

Now I’m not a huge fan of King Kong. I saw the original black and white movie when I was younger and I was decidedly apathetic about it. I mean, that ape looked pretty bad by the time I saw it and I sort of walked away thinking that people in the 30’s who were scared by the movie and thought there must be a real 25 foot gorilla somewhere must have been pretty retarded. But when I saw that Peter Jackson was going to re-make the movie and it was this summer popcorn flick, my first thought was, “Yeah, okay cool. Maybe I’ll go see that.”

Then I saw rough cuts of the effects on a preview or trailer somewhere. The effects looked pretty sorry and I was almost ready to say “forget it” when I saw some newer clips that made it look like it might be at least tolerable. But once again the stigma of the modern theater got the best of all my acquaintances and I never got around to it. So I figured I’d drop it in the Netflix queue and catch it on DVD.

So here’s the thing about the new King Kong: It’s a lot better than I expected. Considering that I was initially unimpressed with the effects and not a huge fan of the story to begin with, I managed to somehow really like this movie.

A couple of beefs: First, they didn’t fix all the effects. Kong looks a lot better in some shots than others. Also certain lighting effects show the warts of the technology more than others (most of the scenes in the jungle at daylight are fantastic, but at night it’s less impressive). There’s nothing particularly wrong with any of the bazillion effects shots in the film, but whenever I found myself noticing the Uncanny Valley it worked to pull me out of the story and start reflecting on technological limitations which is not really what you want from your audience. Secondly, they rarely get the effect of Kong clutching Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) correct, and it usually looks either fake or like she’d naturally be crushed.

Lastly, PJ has a serious problem with his editor: Jamie Selkirk. I don’t know who Selkirk is, but he really needs to learn to tell Jackson “No.” This is a three hour movie that granted needs to be a bit longer than the two hour standard, but certainly doesn’t need to be as long as it is. There are about four too many rescue scenes, the fight between Kong and the T-Rexes goes on for about ten too many minutes and a fairly disgusting and pointless scene in a canyon with a horde of giant insects both defies logic (a guy shoots a bunch of squirming bugs off of a guy from point blank range with a tommy gun and never even grazes the human) and wastes time. There are dozens of other scenes where the camera just stays on too long.

But once you get over all that, it’s actually a pretty great movie. What impresses me the most is that I don’t recall the original doing enough to give Kong his motivation. Why would he be so fixated on Darrow? It also had a creepy element in the Darrow (Fay Wray)/Kong scenes since the ape model was incapable of realistic emotions so he had a kind of creepy smile and an angry scowl, but that’s it. Here, Kong’s emotions come through in a more animalistic yet completely natural way. Rather than trying to project full human emotions on Kong, Jackson manages to make him like a giant pet. Anyone with a dog or a cat at home can understand the personality of animals and the connection that can happen between human and animal. It is this bond that Kong and Darrow show. Kong is dangerous, there is no doubt, but he has a persona and a compassion that we learn as the characters do.

Which would all be useless and even laughable if not for Watts’ stunning acting. Why she didn’t get an Oscar for her work here is beyond me. She manages to juggle her swing from desperate Depression casualty to hopeful dreamer to terrified captive to concerned protector with a remarkable ease and never once makes it seem hokey or implausible. Consider that she does all this while mostly playing off of a green-suited stand-in and you have to marvel at the result.

Coming Attractions

A couple of movies I’m excited about that are new or coming up: Brick, the neo-noir flick set in a high school and Silent Hill which looks like it might be the first really good movie based on a video game. Although why no one has re-done that game for modern consoles totally escapes me.

Gross

Today’s repulsive moment: A book bound with human skin. Yet somehow the phrase “anthropodermic bibliopegy” is about the coolest thing I’ve seen all day. Say it a couple times. It’s awesome!

The Character of the Team

I feel like talking about the Sharks because Saturday’s overtime loss may have been overlooked as an insignificant event in light of the one point and Edmonton’s loss moving San Jose one point closer but not really being a huge move either way.

In case you missed it, San Jose played their second game against the Coyotes in three nights and after having been soundly beaten on Thursday they looked to be back in low form during a second period meltdown that put them down 0-3 going into the last twenty minutes of play. Randy Hahn and Drew Remenda, Sharks TV announcers, noted as the period began that that final period would be very telling as to what this Sharks team is really all about this year.

When all was said and done the Sharks lost during the 4-on-4 overtime which was certainly disappointing but when you consider that they were on the penalty kill when the winning goal was scored and you note that they had some very real chances of winning shorthanded (that is to say, they almost scored at least three times with only three men on the ice) plus they had just battled back from a deep deficit and the penalty called against Matt Carle was dubious at best (as were most of the calls, going both directions, all night long), well let’s just say if there is such a thing as a moral victory, this was one.

Here’s the thing about the Sharks: They’re a very good team on paper. Good enough that they really ought not to be struggling at this late stage in the game to make it into the playoffs; good enough that they should be fighting for Pacific Division Champions and not trying to elbow their way in a crowd of five or six other teams hoping for two or three low-seed playoff berths. Adding Joe Thornton has certainly improved the team, but that wasn’t really hard because the Sharks were basically atrocious in the early part of the year (remember December?).

It may be a bit early to be nitpicking each individual on this squad but I figure no one cares once the season is over (assuming the Sharks don’t make the playoffs as I predicted) and it won’t matter if the Sharks actually do hit the post-season since a year in which one finishes in the top eight can’t really be counted as a poor effort. So regardless of what happens from here on out, here’s my decidedly un-professional opinion about the team, player by player.

Steve Bernier: Bernier has been pretty impressive this year. I like putting a big strong guy on a line with the speedy Marleau and if nothing else Bernier will be remembered in San Jose for that sublime spin-o-rama goal a couple of weeks ago. For a guy with his size he doesn’t seem too thrilled about hanging out in front of the net which is a shame, but he’s definitely got potential as he continues to improve and learns how much his strength can be an asset.
Matt Carle: It’s tough to say if the late season pickup of this young collegiate star is a good thing or not since he’s been seen so little at this point. I can say that I like the guy’s slapshot (hard and on target, unlike—for example—Kyle McLaren who just shoots it hard at… who knows what) and offensive D-men are a welcome presence in this club so hopefully he’ll stop taking brain-dead penalties sooner than later and work on making sure that he doesn’t push the offensive side of the equation so far that he forgets his primary responsibility which we’ve seen him do a few times already. I appreciate that there is a learning curve in the NHL but a guy coming in with this much hype is going to have a hard time working through his growing pains in the middle of a playoff race so he’ll have to get good in a hurry or I bet fans’ patience with him will be very thin.
Jonathan Cheechoo: Fans knew Cheech was something special during the last season but if you think it was just the addition of Joe Thornton that turned him from an average goal scorer into a 50-goal threat behemoth you’re not looking at the whole line. Cheechoo impresses me not just because he can bury the puck but because he’s not a Selanne-like cherry picker who sits and waits for the feed outside of hot zones; the kid forechecks like a lunatic, crashes nets, smells opportunities and capitalizes on chances. Thornton may have made him complete by understanding what he was capable of and making Cheechoo’s efforts pay off, but I think Cheechoo would have had a 35 goal season even without big Joe on the dish. When you have a dynamic duo like this, don’t worry about where it comes from or why it happens, just keep enjoying while it lasts.
Rob Davison: A remarkably average defenseman, he does nothing special either for or against his team. The quintessential warm body on the ice, he’ll occasionally throw an impressive check or make a blue line play but I wouldn’t miss him if he were gone and I don’t mind him filling a roster spot while he’s here.
Christian Ehrhoff: Ehrhoff is one of those players who is either the hero or the goat. As often as he’ll make a brilliant play he’ll drop a massive egg out there which is why watching him is so frustrating. Streaky offensively, he has finally started finding the net from the point as opposed to being a threat primarily to the corner glass. Which doesn’t mean he scores a lot, just that hopefully he’ll start making those power play shots mean something other than a free zone clear for the defense. His inability to hold a blue line is probably his biggest detriment on that side of the ice. Defensively he makes some questionable decisions way more often than I’d like, Ehrhoff has at least youth going for him and if the organization decides to keep him around hopefully he’ll continue to improve bit by bit until he eventually develops the flashes of excellence he shows and stamps out the last vestiges of youthful idiocy to become a premier defender.
Nils Ekman: Give Nils credit where due: The dude gets more dynamite chances to score than anyone else on the team. I’ve never seen so many breakaways, hard work chances and pure skill based opportunities develop as a result of Nils Ekman’s play. It’s a shame that he can’t shoot the puck to save his life. For every brilliant scoring chance laid at his feet he seems to fail to capitalize 99.999% of the time. Compare and contrast him with Jonathan Cheechoo who both benefit from Joe Thornton on their line and where Cheechoo has let his natural scoring ability sparkle with the big passer’s skills at his disposal Ekman has continued to struggle with shot placement, second efforts and finishing plays. He’s also the worst offender of the bad penalty on the whole team, taking hooking calls deep in the attacking zone for no reason, making sloppy plays on defense and constantly putting his team in a bad position at the most inopportune times. Ekman has in him, somewhere, a very good hockey player but it doesn’t seem to be coming out in this line or perhaps in this system. Bottom line: Trade bait. Sorry, Ek.
Jim Fahey: Fahey hasn’t played a ton of games this year and seems to be in the process of being replaced by the young Matt Carle. Which isn’t a bad thing since in 21 games Fahey is operating at a -11 which puts him lowest on the team in plus/minus.
Marcel Goc: Another low plus/minus player on the Sharks is Goc which I attribute to the fact that he’s lazy on defense probably because he fancies himself a sniper which his performance doesn’t seem to validate. When lower line Centers have you beat in points production (Goc has 19 points in 72 games of which only 7 are actual goals) you have some work to do and I honestly don’t see Goc making a lot of progress. He looks far too contented and even bored on the ice and if the Sharks make it to the playoffs or hope to make a serious run to the Cup next year it’s guys like Goc who are going to have to defecate or vacate the toilet.
Josh Gorges: Gorges has quietly been putting together some nice work in the Sharks’ zone since coming up mid-season. He hits hard and plays aggressively which I like and while he hasn’t been much of a threat offensively, he at least seems to have the fundamental defensive skills to become a young Hannan-type player. One to keep an eye on.
Scott Hannan: The Sharks primary ice-time guy, Hannan has been a very good zone protector for several years now and he’s still improving as he goes along. I’m happy to see Scott rushing pucks into the offensive zone on occasion now and generally looking more comfortable taking the shot than always looking for the pass. He doesn’t play quite as much of a physical game as guys like Doug Murray or Kyle McLaren but he’ll play it when it’s smart and seems to try and outthink his opponents. He is great at playing the body position game and I’ve seen him break up more than a few odd man rushes or breakaways that shows you he’s a good player to pair with a younger guy like Carle or Gorges in case one of them makes a mistake. If Scott could put a 40-point season together, that would take the Sharks a long way toward being serious Cup contenders.
Patrick Marleau: The Sharks captain has finally shaken off the slumpy woes that plagued him through his first seven years as an NHL player and the resuts have been exactly what fans have been hoping for. You don’t argue with 80 points and 32 goals from your captain and the fact that most of the year has had him playing on a line with two rookies just makes his season all the more impressive. Giving Bernier and Michalek ample time to develop into their own skills will only make this second line stronger (on other teams a 130-point line could be their number one) and Marleau better. Which is kind of scary, really. Doug Wilson and crew need to do what they must to make sure Patty is a Shark for a long time.
Alyn McCauley: McCauley did great things for the Sharks during the previous season but has been quiet this year, playing out of position on a more physical line than normal (the Sharks have seven natural Centers so someone had to play elsewhere). You’d like to see McCauley be closer to 20 goals at this point in the season but not every year can be a career defining one. If the Sharks don’t make the playoffs this year expect to see McCauley traded in the off-season or on a very short leash for the 06-07 campaign.
Kyle McLaren: Kyle McLaren must love playing defense. He’s got that classic D-man insanity in his eyes and it seems to be his life’s wor to try and peg every swollen-head sniper the Sharks face with a big fat end-over-end hip check. And it’s a blast to watch. Nothing is sweeter as a fan than seeing Selanne, Iginla or Modano smeared all over the ice trying to sneak something tricky across the blue line. For that reason alone (and the fact that he’s not horrible on the other side of the rink) I think McLaren should remain a Shark for seasons to come.
Milan Michalek: Bernier and Marleau’s linemate has quietly had a pretty darn decent rookie year with 34 points and a +6. Unfortunately his offensive production seems to have the same sort of stutter-start, streaky issues that Marleau went through for the first few years of his career. Michalek is a fast skater with good instincts and some nice moves but it doesn’t seem like he works with his line yet; almost like he’s playing with Marleau but not Bernier. A bit more chemistry on that line and it could be really, really dangerous.
Doug Murray: It’s a shame that the new NHL rules have forced guys like Murray into a supporting role because he’s an absolute hoot to watch. The way he throws checks reminds me of watching hockey back when the Sharks first came into the league and the game was grittier and nastier and there was a reason that hockey players evoked images of toothless savages. Now the game is slicker, faster and I’ll grant you overall more exciting. Still, nothing sparks a stadium crowd like a thundering, bone-rattling, glass wobbling plaster into the boards. Maybe a bit more time in the minors developing some stick skills and a shot to go with that devil-may-care body tossing will create a real force to be reckoned with. Murray is everything we always wished Rathje would be, and that’s a compliment.
Evgeni Nabokov: It’s been a rough year for Nabby. He’s been hurt, he’s been bad and he’s been good. He seems to have finally settled into being “mediocre” which is at least something. And he has been playing okay since the Olympic break… I can’t help but wonder if he suffered during the lockout last year somehow. But Nabokov hasn’t been Mr. Brilliant since his first couple of years in the league and I think with Toskala playing well lately and an impressive if little-seen netminder waiting down in the minors for his second chance, Nabby is going to have to find a way to rise above. Contract or no contract.
Ville Nieminen: Nieminen is an odd player. A checking line guy that has some finesse; a winger that acts like a d-man; a brute that shows some surprising grace on occasion. It’s fairly obvious that the Wilsons got Nieminen to put some grit out there in case of a playoff berth but he seems to have had a positive impact in the race to get there as well. Surprisingly his career numbers aren’t much to look at, but he’s got a noticeable work ethic that shows up on the forecheck, backcheck and work down low that could make all the difference in a tough final nine games.
Scott Parker: Like Nieminen and Murray, The Sheriff is a relic of a game gone by. Sad or not, hockey has moved on and this isn’t Scott Parker’s game anymore. I don’t mind having Parker on the team but if you watched him take a miserable penalty on Saturday night and get moded into a one-sided roughing penalty for trying to pick a fight it’s hard not to think of him as a liability, especially down the stretch. The Sharks could have used his gut and heart-on-the-sleeve style early in the season when they were slumping badly but at this stage of the game they need clean play and solid skills, not goons. If Parker can learn to adapt and use his abilities to lead the charge in playing a physical game (the Sharks are 500 times better when they play tight, physical hockey) without taking a bunch of idiot penalties in the process he’s going to be a huge asset. If he can’t do it without constantly putting the Sharks down a man, he’s got to be out of a job.
Tom Preissing: The Sharks best offensive threat from the blue line has started to come into his own late in the season, finding the back of the net more regularly and (importantly) at opportune times. I’d still like to see the Sharks rely a bit less on the long shot from the point on the power play but if they have to go that route at least send it Preissing’s way. If the Sharks only got to keep two defensemen from this year’s team, I’d let them all loose save Priessing and Hannan.
Patrick Rissmiller: Yet another young offensive player who hasn’t had enough time to really get over the learning curve of the NHL transition. Time will tell if he’s got what it takes but so far I haven’t seen much to really complain about.
Mark Smith: It’s a crying shame that Mark Smith doesn’t have more skill than he does. If guys like Stevenson, Michalek and Goc worked half as hard as Smith does they’d all be 25+ goal scorers. I absolutely love watching Smith play. He tries so hard and you can just tell he’s only where he is in the league because he simply never gives up. Of course this means he’s got to do a lot of compensating for his lack of raw ability so he ends up in the penalty box a lot. But he plays with heart and mind so usually I don’t mind the penalty minutes. When you consider that comparable role players like Sean Avery have more than twice as many PIMs than Smith (the most penalized Shark), you realize that we’re lucky to have Smith doing what he does.
Grant Stevenson: I was hoping for a bit more from Stevenson this year. Maybe it was just that with so many rookies on the team I had to pick one that I thought might come out of nowhere and have a spectacular year. Well that didn’t happen and honestly Stevenson has quite underwhelmed me. I hope he gets better but even if he did so on some other team, I wouldn’t be all broken up about it.
Joe Thornton: The Sharks needed a superstar. Granted, it could have been Marleau. He’s got the stuff to put up 100 points. But Marleau isn’t there yet. You know the difference between Thornton and Marleau? Thornton was ready for the NHL faster. I guess that’s why he was picked first and Marleau was chosen second. So the Sharks got both. They had to give up some fan favorites like Sturm and Stuart, but look what they got in return. 57 assists. 16 goals. +21. My only concern about big Joe is that he’s so good that sometimes the other players look to him too much to bail them out of a jam. I’ve mentioned this before but Thornton is enough of a threat to other teams just being an option, if he becomes the Sharks’ only option, the team is going to be easy to beat. Also I’ve noticed during the last few games (in which the Sharks have been in something of a slump not coincidentally) that Thornton has started to almost have too much confidence, giving up odd man rushes or breakaways due to trying to do too much by himself. Maybe he’s buying into his own hype, maybe he’s just getting too much pressure from other teams that don’t want to fall victim to the Thornton/Cheechoo machine, whatever it is he’ll need to straighten it all out if the Sharks want to make the playoffs this year. And no matter what he’ll have to keep bringing it full on next year or the Sharks are (ahem) dead in the water.
Scott Thornton: I can’t believe this guy is still on the team. Repeat after me Mr. Wilson: “I must trade Scott Thornton. I must trade Scott Thornton.” 19 points in 63 games with a -10 and 75 PIM? Buh-bye.
Vesa Toskala: I’ve been down on Toskala in the past. I’m not here to repent or try to kiss up now. I’ll grant you that he’s been the guy during this last push for a playoff spot. But is that really that he’s been spectacular or that Nabokov has been stunningly so-so? Okay, Defensive Player of the Week is good, but Toskala still makes me nervous because he doesn’t make routine stops, he always seems to fight the puck. Honestly, I don’t care as long as he wins. At this point in the season he’s beating Nabokov in virtually every non-cumulative stat category and I guess that’s why he keeps getting the nod. I still think it wouldn’t be a crime to trade him off for some added depth in the offense or bundle him with Scott Thornton for a big name defender like a Visnovsky, but I’m not sad to see him still here. Competition is good, and hopefully it will make Nabokov rise above. Then again, we’ve gambled on him before and lost Kiprusoff in the process so maybe I’m suggesting we make the same mistakes again.
Ron Wilson: Whenever a team does poorly people look at the coach. Whenever a team does really, really well, the coach gets some credit. When a team could be great but is underachieving, it seems like no one really thinks about the coach. I think Wilson did a bang-up job when he first stepped in for ~~Beaker~~ Sutter. He cleaned up the penalty kill first thing. But what’s up now? The Sharks penalty kill has flat out sucked most of the year. Their power play is streaky at best and Wilson can’t seem to decide if having Marleau on the point is a good idea or not. They’ve lost so many opportunities on failed 5-on-3 advantages that it simply can’t be all the players’ fault. I suspect—and this is only speculation—that Wilson is too nice of a guy. He seems to only get heated at the refs. Where’s the fire for the players that act like turds on ice? I want to see him up in the grill of a guy like Goc when he’s out there fumbling around, staring at the hot dog vendor. I want him to flat out bench a guy like Fahey when he lets a winger draw him into a bad penalty. Instead he seems oddly indifferent to his own players and that concerns me. I’ll be the first to take it all back if the Sharks pull it together but as a team they’ve been inconsistent enough and slumped often enough in critical portions of the season that some of the blame has to be levelled at the coaching staff for not making these players aware of what they’re capable of and inspiring them to live up to those expectations. I’m certainly not suggesting it’s time to start thinking about a leadership change, but I think the talent is there or nearly there, the front office seems to have a clear picture of what they want to do and the only thing that’s lacking is the day-in-day-out execution on the ice. It’s something to keep in mind.

Oh, and One Other Thing

Dude, I totally do this all the time. Now I know what to call it!

Oh, the Places You’ll Go

Virtually speaking, of course.

Newsflash: Web 2.0 isn’t the Answer to All Our Problems. Don’t get me wrong, I love a lot of these new sites coming out, but nifty features on a still-young, constantly changing platform are going to be prone to some hiccups. For example, I tried to log into Writely last night from Safari and couldn’t get past the intro screen. Maybe Writely doesn’t work with Safari, maybe it was just a glitch but if using a specific computer caused Word to stop working, there would be rioting in the streets. Suited rioting. Also it is kind of unnerving to add network connectivity problems to the list of reasons why I might not be able to get some of my important software to work. Network uptime isn’t exactly rock-solid in any environment I’ve ever been in.
I’ve considered checking out one of those Treo deals. Don’t get me wrong, I like the RAZR mucho grande but my job gets me discounts and deals on Cingular stuff and it also requires me to be more plugged-in more often than I’ve been used to in the past. Having my email at least rudimentary Internet access handy would be quite a boon. Oh, and besides, Nikki covets my RAZR. I don’t blame her. The thing is dead sexy. Anyway, I may be looking at the 650 after reading this second take on the 700w.
Seriously, this is not a positive development. First of all most conversations I find myself in bore the life out of me. I don’t need someone electronically outing me. Secondly, if I had one of these it would be buzzing all the time because I suspect my conversations are dull principally because I am involved in them and, well, I’m pretty bromidic.
If this article were condensed into a 30 second narration and read aloud by a guy with a deep baritone and a overwrought sense of urgency, I swear it would sound exactly like a movie trailer. “Deep beneath the surface of this small town, an unquenchable fire burns…”
Want to see digg and slashdot posters’ heads explode? Watch them squirm under the conflicting death rays of a software patent dispute that results in Microsoft’s IE7 needing to handle ActiveX controls in a new way that will result in massive headaches for web developers. Root for the patent lawyers? Feel sorry for Microsoft? Worry about their own sites’ traffic? It’s good fun.
Sounds like OpenSSH developers are whining that they have no money. I’m kind of torn about this. On one hand I like OpenSSH a lot and I use it pretty much every single day. So yeah, I can see dropping $10-20 for it. That’s no problem. What I don’t like is when people release stuff for free and then cry about not getting paid for it. I mean, huh? Hello!

Anti-Verve

I’m wiped out this week. These 4:00 am risings aren’t helping. Tomorrow moring? 3:00 am, and no blissful train-slumber (which really isn’t that blissful since when I actually can nod off I invariably wake up in deep mortal terror that I’ve missed my stop); instead I shall drive in to work at 4:00 am. The good news is that I’m such an easy sleeper that I can doze off at 8:00 pm no sweat.

‘Cept not.

Anyway, my mental capacity may be diminished, but am I the only one who thinks this is so lame as to actually be sorta cool? I mean, I know it’s aimed at the affluent urban types (aka drug dealers), but a Windows application? Who has a PC in their car in the ‘hood? Still, if I had a “pimped” ride, I would totally roll around with a picture of Dr. McNinja on my wheels. Oh! And a Sharks logo.

Things I Would Point Out if I Were a Grouchy Guy

It starts raining each day roughly 30 minutes before I have to go outside to wait for the bus/train.
I have a nice whiteboard at work… but no eraser or markers.
I’ve more or less forgotten to eat lunch every day since last Thursday.
The Sharks have yet to stay “in” the playoffs for two games in a row.
I keep drinking the canned Apple Juice at work, thinking it’s healthier than diet soda. Then I read the label and realized it’s even worse than regular soda.
I bought a new toothbrush and it hurts my teeth.

Whew! Dodged that bullet.

Friday Geek Links

Simply awesome story about a dude with cybernetic arms.
Nintendo Revolution to play TurboGrafix-16 and Sega Genesis games. Woo!
Stories that make me wish I was a lot smarter so I could understand Physics and Quantum theory: Scientists create a new superfluid (this Wikipedia entry may help comprehension on the article); other scientists getting closer to artificial gravity.

Overheard Quotes at the Hamilton House That Sound Vaguely Naughty But Really Aren’t

“Honey, after you finish your cereal can we look for my pants?” –Nik

ironSoap

A critically engaging exercise in pointless tedium.