Field Trip

Getting ready to head off to work... but at some point this afternoon...

Going to the Apple Store, too.

And we'll just have to see what I may (or may not) come home with...

Catch you on the update.

Farewell Hotdog

Tonight was John Harris' last night at HCE. He's leaving us for the far off shores of Japan, where he'll be teaching English.

Way to take advantage of your youth, Hotdog!*

If we're lucky, when he comes back to town in 3 or 4 months, he'll want to come back and work Post. If he's lucky, he'll end up married to a wealthy Japanese babe and be able to buy back all of the comics Will's selling on his behalf.

But either way, someone wins.

John is mulling over starting up a blog/photo group, so hopefully I'll be able to set up a link at some point. I know I'm hoping I can see what kind of mischief he gets into in the Far East.

Those of you familiar with my more awkward years know that I spent several weeks in Japan as a small-scale exchange student. I actually spent most of my time in a small town in the northern Aomori prefecture; we only flew in and out of Tokyo, where John will be based. So I'm fairly curious to see what that life is like.

We'll miss you, Hotdog, and we sure are jealous.



[* John got his nickname (Hotdog) when the Post Dept. decided everyone needed Battlestar Galactica tags. I can remember who everyone was (Will was Tigh, Josh was Apollo, Holland was Anders, I was Chief Tyrell, and so on), but Hotdog's was the only one that really stuck. Although anyone who wants to call me "Chief" without being condescending is more than welcome to.]

Special Thanks: The Premiere

Movies get special thanks. So do books, newspaper articles, even DVD bonus features.

So why not our lives?

Consider this the first of *many* entries in my own, personal, Special Thanks.

Thank you, Sandrine. You rock. And you'd better believe I'm getting you back for this one. You are far too kind, and I'm lucky enough to benefit from it.

Thank you.

Help

After conferring with both Jacob and Josh, it's looking more and more like my initial diagnosis was right: the hard drive on my venerable iMac G5 is dying. Luckily, I can get an easy (and cheap!) fix for that, and feel pretty comfortable doing the repair.

The question then becomes, what drive to use? I'm too tired to do the research right now, so instead I ask you, my beloved reader(s?): what brand hard drive do you recommend?

I am eyeing this model from OWC; I've bought several OWC drives over the years, and have been happy with the quality of the product. I can never remember what the general consensus on Maxtor drives is, though. They have a Western Digital for the same price; is that any better?

I'll start trolling the web tomorrow and see what I can find, but in the interim, any thoughts?

Referral

Quick addition.

I linked to his blog the other day, but I have to come back for more: Jamie Antonisse's blog rocks.

It isn't big or epic; just a very natural personal weblog. No custom CSS, a very default-ish look, but damned good writing. I wish I had a writing style as natural and pleasant to read as Jamie's. His is the ideal personal blog to me: it shares personal details and is about his life, but is entertaining to read beyond that, because the content and style are good. Worth checking out from time to time, and hopefully, if traffic and comment volume increase, he'll make posting a more regular habit.

As a side note, Jamie, like me, goes by his middle name. So we rock. Together.

And Again

Two days behind in a row...

Let's just say I hope a lot of you are planning on buying the Lost Season 3 Blu-Ray set. I didn't even come home on Monday night.

In related (?) news, I think my iMac may be wearing down... the hard drive has a *lot* of trouble loading. and I get slow, buggy response from the machine for the first 5-10 minutes after waking it from sleep. It can hang up sporadically during use as well; wait a few minutes, and it recovers.

This seems to be the hard drive to me, but I'm not sure. I'm fairly good with computers; I could probably deal with swapping out the hard drive myself, but I wonder if that's the problem, or just a symptom. I don't love the idea of paying $150 to get the machine assessed, meanwhile not having it available for Tracy while I'm at work. Again, though, I don't want to just buy a new machine for almost 3 large when this one is salvageable and might last me a solid year. Ugh. Decisions like this are *not* my favorite.

With an HD TV, Blu-Ray/HD-DVD (?) player, and possible iPhone looming on the horizon, as well as a trip to Hawaii (more on that later), I really don't want to have to worry about this. Please, baby, just a few more months!

Heroes

I tried watching Heroes on NBC when it first aired. I had gotten ahold of a screener of the original pilot and was thoroughly unimpressed⎯shoddy writing, bad acting, and some terribly wirework, plus a fairly limp plot. Good ideas in a bad framework.  So, when the (at this point) modified pilot aired, I gave it another shot, hoping they'd tighten it up.

They didn't.

The first three episodes are pretty uniformly terribly. The fourth starts to perk up, particularly with an awesome ending, but was still pretty bad.

So I gave up.

But a lot of people were calling it great. Friends of mine, whose opinions, I trust recommended it to me. And I remained curious. Curious enough to buy the whole season on iTunes, but not to watch it.

Until this weekend.

I'm into Episode 9 (I think), called "Six Months Earlier."

And Heroes is a pretty good show.

The first four episodes are just as terrible as I remember. Anyone who says otherwise is wrong. But the writers seem to have realized it themselves, and started pulling their shit together. Mohinder still drives me nuts, and the dialogue can still fall flat, but the simple feat of making Peter Petrelli interesting and likeable (!) deserves recognition.

So I'm into it. I'm not hooked, and, at least at this point, it hasn't reached the "must watch" status of Battlestar Galactica, or even Lost or previous seasons of 24. But I am liking it, and provided I finish Season 1 by the premiere two weeks from Monday, I'll be watching Season 2.

Any of you fans or haters? I'm curious what other opinions are...

Boss AWESOME

Here's a little nugget of goodness, courtesy of Jamie Antonisse over at the (aptly named ) Jamie Antonisse Blog. It's a music track he composed for a video game he's working on; as a student at the USC Video Game Design School, this is all part of his curriculum.

Bastard.

Another bit of prelude: Jamie is a wizard at GarageBand. Swear to God. You've never seen anyone use their mouse to create better⎯or funnier⎯music. He does it by dragging/setting each note by hand, and chopping up sampled loops. It's awesome. If I get permission to put some of his earlier tracks up, I'll try and do it. He's doing the score for the entire game (I think), so there's another reason to try and play "Wrath of the Transperator" when the B-Game Competition goes live.

Until then, I am proud to be the first (only?) mirror of... BOSS FIGHT!

3:10 To Yuma

Short post tonight.

3:10 To Yuma was, in my humble opinion, one fantastic flick. Excellent performances— Christian Bale continues to be one of the best working actors out there, Russell Crowe used his charaisma in a way completely appropriate to his character, and Ben Fostor stole all of his scenes as the psychopathic Charlie.

Yuma is not seeking to reinvent, subvert, or lampoon the Western genre. It is simply a very good classic Western, made with modern sensibilities. If it seemed a little... cartoony at times, that's because the Western story is the American creation myth; archetypes play their dramas out on the frontier landscape. Ben Wade can redeem himself so fully because he already is a legend, or a version of a legend; Christian Bale is the same struggling frontiersman, too weak to support his family, who can learn to be enough of a man to take a last stand. I've heard complaints about a certain horse hearing a quiet whistle from a few hundred yards away, while a train roars by. Folks, that's not literal, that's symbolic. This is a Story about who we are.

Marco Beltrami's score seemed to really sum up my feelings on this. It's got the classic sounds we all expect a Western score to have— brassy horns, twangy guitars, the same chord progressions Morricone uses. But it's still it's own beats, and serves the story being told here, with strong percussion and a clear action rhythm. It sounds modern, to be sure, but is no doubt classical, and instantly recognized for what it is. And so the film is an exemplary Western, modern not in its structure, but simply in its timing and style.

Already...

Sigh. Missed a day already. But at least I'm expressing regret and, instead of ignoring the problem, dealing with it. Half the battle. Or at least I hope so...

Yesterday's absence comes with a reason, however. I went with Josh R. to the new Best Buy in Sherman Oaks, to look at HDTVs.

Now Hutson, you say, Isn't Best Buy another corporate Big Box with crappy selections and high prices? Well yes, dear reader, it is. But it is also the only place you can really see big electronics in person, and with something like a TV, you'd better believe I am going to see it before buying. Besides, this Best Buy has (in a single week!) already developed a reputation as a big store with a wonderful selection, so it seemed a good place to go.

Long story short, I fell in love. Walked right in and saw the best HDTV I have seen yet, playing one of my favorite movies, Batman Begins. A sign from heaven, confirmed when it then switched to Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Samsung LN-T4665F!

This TV has, without a doubt, the best HD image I have seen in a consumer model. Amazing blacks, very crisp images, 1080p capable, amazing color fidelity. In fact, I haven't seen any flatscreen at all that compares. And seeing as I look at this stuff every day, I like to think I have an informed opinion.

This is the set to get. It's a great value, and a simply remarkable picture. I will be getting one soon... I promised Tracy it'd be this "winter," so as soon as we hit the equinox, I am there!

Amazon is offering a deal right now, and I can't recommend this TV enough. If you can, go see it, and prepare to be amazed.

iPod, Therefore iPhone

Big day for the Apple Faithful!

Steve Jobs updated the iPod Shuffle (new colors, same storage/price), the iPod Nano (new colors to match shuffle, new storage, new form factor, new OS), the iPod Classic (né iPod) (IMMENSE storage update, new form factor, new OS), introduced the all-new iPod Touch (iPhone sans phone, camera, weather/stock/maps widgets), and unveiled the iTunes WiFi store, where you can buy songs over WiFi with the iPhone and the iPod Touch.

But the big deal, to me, is that they dropped the price of the 8 gig iPhone to $399.

Here's my story. For years, now, I've said I want two things: a widescreen iPod for videos, and a high-storage iPod for my entire library. Including songs and videos (and a growing number of podcasts), I'm looking at 130 gigs of material... no small feat. And I always assumed they'd be the same device. iPhone comes out, and I think "Cool, when they make a hard drive version without the phone, I'll get that as the new iPod." Figured I'd be set.

Then Apple went and confounded me by making these items two separate iPods. If I want widescreen, I need an iPod Touch. If I want space, I need an iPod Classic.

I see Apple's reasoning-- they need battery power and small space requirements for the Touch, which means flash storage. And maintaining the Classic line allows for the high-storage models to be available, which Apple can't yet replace with flash. Plus, they get an added benefit of maintaining a "premium" status with the MultiTouch interface, which is good for it's own tech cachet. So two devices it is.

Another benefit to Apple in this circumstance applies directly to me. Now that the Touch offers only 8 GB and 16 GB, an iPhone is only a little smaller and a little more expensive, for phone functionality. So people can be seriously tempted to get the Phone, and help build Apple's marketshare in that new market. If they don't, they are still buying an iPod, and Apple wins.

Looking at my usage, I realize something. Since getting my laptop 10 (!) months ago, I have used iPods less and less. The shuffle I got in March gets more use than my 5G (60 GB) iPod. Because when I do most of music listening, I have my laptop, which has all of my music anyway. So now, do I want Touch controls enough to carry an iPod as well as a phone? Well, no-- the internet functionality I need is limited to WiFi, and I usually have my laptop in the office, so I don't need that. I don't want to buy an iPod touch just to have a phone in my pocket too. COnvergence is suddenly seeming more and more appropriate...

So you got me, Apple. Looks like, at your new lower price, I may have to buy an iPhone. I'm going to wait a few weeks, and think about it, but I'm feeling the winds of change a blowin' my way.

Bastards.

Nine Months In...

Hello All-

Here's a little experiment. We're here in the Month of September. I've had this blog rolling for, technically, 8 full months now, and I have something like 10 posts.

WEAK.

So here, in the (formerly 7th) 9th month of the year, I make a firm attempt.

I will post every day of September, from this point forward.

Aiding me, I have a new tool: MarsEdit.

Basically, it's a blogging application I can do all of my composing, tagging, and posting through. I'm fairly optimistic that, with this app, I'll be posting more frequently, and with a higher level of quality.

Was the Blogger Dashboard that complex or annoying? No, but the step of going through a web interface slowed me down. On the one hand, going through a browser portal isn't a dedicated act: I can quit Safari and lose work, or get distracted into other webpages. It doesn't feel as "official." On the other hand, the act of logging in and navigating to the "Compose" page takes several clicks and entries; with MarsEdit, I launch an app and go.

So, we'll see if the psychological game pays off. As I've stated before (in person, if not on this blog per se), I want this to be a true window into my life, a real tool for friends and family, as well as myself, to be able to use for communication/getting informed.

Stay on my ass. E-mail me. Post comments.

I need your help to do this.

;-)