Star Trek: The Tour

Star Trek: The Tour opens in Long Beach in January.

Who's with me?

Because I am so there.

YouTube x3

Because work is all about receiving, viewing, and passing along humorous internet videos.



This one's courtesy of Jeremey Foley, who can't stop watching it. The humor comes on slowly; like The Big Lebowski and fine wine, it gets better with age. Once you anticipate what's coming, and laugh at the reporter as she herself laughs, it gets pretty good.

I do feel bad for the kid; what he's said, even in the context he has, is not that different from a lot of things kids say. But he ends up on YouTube, and suddenly a million people are laughing at him.

You know what? When I was a kid, I misunderstood a reporter asking me questions on the news... so I started talking about a local recycling initiative instead of an infamous murder case.

Shit happens, I guess. And that is still funny.



This one comes from Adam; he, Jamie, Belinda, and I have been mulling this one over for a day or two. Jamie has already put up a blog post about it, and then a response post to the original.

I am so five minutes ago.

This is, on examination, quite clearly staged. The kid starts screaming and moving in a way obviously designed to attract the dog's, ah, affections, and the camera-person is expecting this, and intentionally not rushing to the child's aid. But I like to think that this is a recreation, for the benefit of the camera, of a prior event, a candid moment where all parties found themselves in this shocking (and hilarious) circumstance, which, at its conclusion, left all involved thinking "I wished we had that on tape!"

Well, now you do.

Jamie also makes the excellent point that, regardless of the human intentions on display, that dog is dead serious.



Lastly, here's my favorite strike video yet. If you don't know what strike I'm talking about... you don't live in LA. So good for you.

This week is when a lot of normal viewers are going to start noticing the Writer's Strike. This is pretty much the last week of new scripted entertainment until... well, who knows when. Half of the shows out there start are already showing repeats, and the late night shows have been out of production for over a month.

This video does a good job of positing what would happen if more media formats ran out of content with the striking WGA...

And isn't David Cross great?

OS X Dock Stacks

I came across this video showing the behavior of Stacks in the Dock back in beta versions of Mac OS X Leopard.

The salient difference, for those of you saying "That's the same as my stacks now," is that the stacks are in the application portion of the dock. Not consigned to the Document/Trash/Windows side of the dock, but useful as a true application launcher.

I think this looks pretty cool; the ability to name (and rename) stacks, as well as live-reorder them, seems pretty damn awesome too.

Maybe in an update? 10.5.3 or something?

Unreal

[WARNING: I found this story to be pretty disturbing... it isn't violent or offensive, but unsettling on a very basic level.]

A man in Indonesia cut himself as a teenager.

And, before long, he started growing warts, which kept growing...

Into roots. Or, more accurately, root-like growths.

This gets to me. This mans body turned into... something else, something alien. This is the exact same body anxiety movies like Alien play at: that your body is turned into a host for another organism, eating at your humanity.

This stuck in my mind for days; particularly when he shows off his hands in the video.

But, if you're interested, the video is the only way to get a real sense of what these growths are.

With a week's worth of distance, I find this scientifically fascinating; that HPV could run so rampant belongs on House, and the final result is right out of The X-Files. But I am still deeply unsettled... I hope that, someday, doctors are able to remove and restrain this man's unnatural warts, so he can use his fingers again.

And I hope I never get warts like that.

Good luck, brother.

Flash Drive Testimonial

Yesterday, I sent my USB flash drive through the wash, nestled comfortably in my pants pocket.

Doh!

Imagine my surprise and pleasure, then, to discover that it still works perfectly.

If ever there was a better recommendation that this, I don't know it.

So, everyone, if you're in need of a USB flash drive, I heartily recommend the Cruzer Titanium — I have the 2 gig variety.

Go Cruzer!, originally uploaded by Hutson H.

It's A Mystery

Tracy has told me about this before, but I came across an article today about the Racetrack Playa rocks. Short story is these very large rocks seem to slide around the playa, leaving long trails behind them... but no one has ever see seen them move, so no one knows how it happens.

Awesome. I want to go there.

And the good news is... it looks like I will!

When Tracy's parents come out for their (now) yearly LA trip, instead of heading down to Joshua Tree State Park, there's been talk of heading to Death Valley. Where Racetrack Playa is.

And I will make Tracy take us here. With my camera.

A similar place (in the opposite direction) that I want to check out: The Bonneville Salt Flats. Many of you may have seen them as "Davy Jones' Locker" in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End this past summer.

Tracy is right; geology is cool.

Web 2.0 On The Menu

This is a pretty funny story.

Any other ideas? Google Salad, Almond-Crusted Mahalo, with a Triple-Layered MySpace Tiramisu for dessert?

None of that rolls off the tongue nearly as well as "Stir-fried Wikipedia."

8 Points: Beowulf

Spoilers abound, especially for those of you not familiar with the original poem. Even if you are, I may ruin surprises.

So here goes.

1. See this in 3-D. Now. I mean it when I say that this is, bar none, the best 3-D work I have ever seen. Where the CG mocap animation has flaws, the 3-D smoothes them out and more than makes up for them.


2. I don't care what the rhetoric is; this is an animated film. Yes, it is in the direction of photo-real, but it stops short of traditional feature film effects trying to pass for real. It is stylized, especially when it comes to the light-like elements.


3. I wish they had pushed the style further. Early talk was of a moving Frank Frazetta painting; the final result is true to this in design, but is too polished for a real Frazetta feel. Maybe next time?


4. My three favorite moments: Beowulf digging through a sea-monster's eye, and being so worked up, he can only scream his name; Beowulf proclaiming his own legendary status to Grendel, just before ripping his arm off; the entire dragon fight.


5. This may be the best cinematic dragon yet. And certainly the best dragon battle yet. Eat your heart out Sean Connery. The bar has been raised for The Hobbit, if it ever gets made.


6. Roger Avary and Neil Gaiman have some serious credit due; they did one hell of an adaptation, that not only maintains the tone and feel of the epic poem, with its boastful braggarts and ritualized deeds, but feels energetic and exciting in a modern way. And the few additions they made tie the entire narrative together... Hrothgar fathering Grendel, and Beowulf fathering the dragon, make Beowulf's last stand, and the whole progression of the story, resonate in relation to the earlier confrontations. Balanced with the coming of Christianity (a contradiction in the original poem, as it is about Old English gods, but transcribed by Christian monks), and the (classic) death of the Old Ways, and you have a damn fine movie.


7. This is a truly mythic film; 300 wishes it could get you to care about its characters half this well, or get you invested in the battles a tenth what this film manages to do. Bravo.


8. James Cameron's Avatar is going to kick all of our asses.

Post-Thanksgiving

Well, that was a success.

The turkey came out well— came out great, if I do say so myself. Everyone brought a wonderful selection of food, from swiss chard to cranberry mousse. Will made his first cheesecake (pumpkin-flavored). We played some Wii games (Super Mario Galaxy is a solid console entry). We talked and went for a walk. We drink good wine, some Beaujolais Nouveau, some low-end blush sparkling white wine.

For those of you interested, I put my Nikon D80 to solid use tonight; once I finish developing the photos, I'll post and entry to new Flickr photos.

Coming home, unloading my equipment from the car, the cold air caught my attention. I was wearing my new hoodie jacket, hood on my head, carrying a large Rubbermaid tub full of cooking utensils and ingredients. I still smelled of brined and roasted turkey, a smell associated with the cooking my parents did. I had a pumpkin pie in my hands. I closed my eyes, just for a minute, and imaged I could smell frost on the cool air, and hear the wind in the woods back home.

Pretty damned close, for a minute there. Almost like home.

I hope all of your dinners were as good, and as fun, as mine. For those of you going shopping tomorrow, good luck. Will and I are heading out quite early... and, one way or another, I plan on ordering my HDTV. And who knows? Maybe I'll find some other things that spark my fancy... for either myself or others. The Apple Store is down as of right now; computers may be a cool $100 cheaper for tomorrow, both online and in person. And maybe Airport Base Stations and TVs will find themselves discounted. Who knows?

Sweet dreams to you, Dear Reader. I am off to bed to dream of the smells of home cooking, the chills of winter, and the feelings of home.

Goodnight.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Things are starting to get going back at the old digs in Century City...

More pictures as things progress... but I hope all of you have a happy Thanksgiving with great food, great times, and great company!

Amazonian Kindling

I was going to make a post regarding Amazon.com's new device, the "Kindle," but Fake Steve just does this stuff so much better than ever I could. Check it out.

I mean, really? This looks like bad sci-fi from 1987; it belongs on a shelf with old portable audio cassette recorders.

Hawaii Photos

I finally got some of my photographs from our Hawaii trip up on Flickr. These are the ones from my Canon point-and-shoot... I haven't finished developing any of my Nikon DSLR shots yet. But for the time being, here's a bunch for everyone to enjoy.

[UPDATED: Functional link posted.]

Waimalano Sunrise 1, originally uploaded by Hutson.