The ongoing prattlings of a lifelong geek and his random luck with love, work, children and rediscovering himself.

2005-08-29

Halo 3 Coming November 2005 For XBox 360?

Interesting little link here.

Google Talk, aka Jabber

I'm now Jabber-enabled, for those who like the Instant Message world. My Google account is now setup in my GAIM client under Google's new Talk system (run via the Jabber protocol).

Star Trek XI: The Beginning?! Give Me More Doctor Who Instead!

No!   NO!   NOOOOOO!!!

Someone stop Paramount!   Star Trek needs a REST!!   I love Star Trek, but I don't want it to be run into the ground!   Heck, even Doctor Who took some time off, and now it's better than ever by far!   C'mon!!   (if you are an American-bound entity, such as myself, you may have trouble catching the good Doctor, but I'm sure there are a torrent of methods available to view these episodes, if you catch my drift...)

2005-08-27

MOVIE: The Cave

My children elected this movie as our Friday Night Excursion, so off we went to the Port Orange Six. I didn't expect it to be a huge hit.

I was not overwhelmed with the movie - but it was "enjoyable". Contact lenses that were supposed to make people look scary ended up looking like their vision was impaired and their heads moved around like (forgive me..) Ray Charles or something.

The general idea of the movie was good, and semi-original. The acting was passable. The ending was a cute twist (like so many such movies have these days) and it left open at least three possible storylines for sequel(s).

I wished I had seen this at a matinee price, but it beat sitting around the house all evening.

MOVIE: Red Eye

Watching this movie, I had to remind myself this was something by Wes Craven - it was not as... horrific?... as I expected. It was a GOOD suspense thriller. I enjoyed it very much. I thought there were some basic holes in the logic of it all (for those who know the movie -- why not just scream on the plane and get the guy subdued and have someone call her dad and tell him "THERE'S A SILVER CAR OUT FRONT - BAD PEOPLE = TRUE!". But I digress (for I am nitpicky like that). It was a decent movie.

2005-08-21

Spruce Creek High Steppin' Hawks Band

Well, another year, another 14,724 events to put into the family calendar for the band (give or take a thousand).   Whew!

2005-08-19

Free Computers

What a cool way to end the work week... being told that there are fifty computers and monitors, plus printers, other hardware and peripherals and more, sitting outside for anyone to take (due to recent upgrades).

I helped myself. Royally. Just about all of it was being used just a few days previously (and worst case, I scalp the drives and internal cards for spare parts). Nift!

2005-08-16

MAME .99 Complete

Happiness is a 100% perfect MAME v.99 collection.   :-)   All ROMs, all samples, and all known icons, screenshots, control panel templates, etc...

Life is good. MAME v1.0 soon..?

2005-08-15

Yahoo [Instant Messenger] Is EVIL

I am boycotting Yahoo IM.   That's it.

Over the next few weeks, I am going to ween those few people I know that "matter to me" off of my Yahoo IM account, because 98% of the contacts I receive through it are "eligible women" looking for "love".   Riiiight.   I previously reported this, but it's just ridiculous. Are there REALLY that many women desperate to get out of Niceragua, or who are here on (what I guess to be) student visas and who want (I assume) a way to stay in the country?

These women are not wanting me (as every one of them claims).   There's no way.   It doesn't matter if I pretend to be a mean, horrible, hateful person, or a gay-animal-molester, or if I ask them rude questions, or if I simply go places verbally I would normally NEVER go.... they just continue to act as if I am an Adonis sent from the heavens to answer their prayers and that they wish to live with me forever.   What a crock.   I always look to see if their account is less than a month old, and they never are.   Usually they are 6 months to 3 years old, so they're not "casual phishers" or anything...

Every.. and I mean EVERY... single one of the "women" I'm talking about type like this (these are actual quotes from my gaim history log):

From "J": am happy u haven't 4gotten me cos u
are always on my mind

From "SF": am infatuated in u

From "WS": sweetie ...i want to come for holliday there

From "WS": what do u intend doing this week end

Most of the women have tried to "pursue me" for months (I have history logs going back to late 2004 for some of them - god, I love gaim).   It's sad (and sometimes I feel BAD for them, because they MUST be desperate to cling to someone they know NOTHING about and who they are acting like they are ENGAGED to).   :-(

2005-08-13

Star Trek Fan Films - Whole New Series For Your Enjoyment!

It seems there have been quite a few fan groups out there making actual SERIES out of Star Trek lore ... full blown, special effects rich episodes of "Star Trek"! I have always loved fan videos of various sorts, but never paid attention to this stuff since I assumed it to be overly campy, no budget and silly. Then I actually looked at it.

You should check some of it out.

A long running series, Star Trek Hidden Frontier can be downloaded and seen from here.

Another series that looks promising (and actually has Walter Koenig to star in an upcoming episode) is located here, called Star Trek New Voyages. It takes place during the never-seen fourth and fifth year of the original five year mission.

There is also Star Trek Intrepid which you can get to here, which is just starting it's efforts.

I'm also eagerly anticipating (for many months now) the release of the Star Trek / Babylon 5 crossover movie "Star Wreck - In The Pirkinning". The trailers make it look REALLY funny and it's completely filled with special effects and funny moments. All hail Emperor Pirk! The last I read, it's supposed to be released by the end of this August 2005!! Now we'll find out if Kirk can beat Sheridan's butt (or get some "light balls" thrown at him instead).   :-)

The Video Game Pianist (aka The Blindfolded Pianist)

Okay, so I'm jealous of this guy (and his mad piano skills)...

He gained notoriety for playing a montage of Super Mario music (yes, from the video game) on the internet, and the rest is history. He has played for various websites, at E3, and at the first ever Video Games Live concert at the Hollywood Bowl on July 6th (the kids and I really enjoyed his performance there).

I suspect he has a future as a master blackjack dealer, if this music thing doesn't pan out for him.

2005-08-12

Max OS On Intel, News At 11

Apparently hell *did* freeze over, because people at various websites are reporting that, since the non-release of Max OS-X for Intel chipsets, people are getting this OS installed onto a variety of computers. Of course Apple will probably be a bit annoyed about this... or finally get smart and enter the OS market (as opposed to the all-in-one solution market).

Link to Slashdot's latest coverage.

2005-08-06

MOVIE: Sky High

A movie about a high school for kids with super-powers.

Okay, so it's a Disney-fied version of the X-Men. It was still cute. No questionable material for your kids to witness. A decent storyline. Above average special effects. I enjoyed it. And of course, the setup for a sequel, if they wanted it...

MOVIE: Stealth

This movie was pretty good. An old science fiction idea rehashed with modern themes (yawn). The acting was so-so. The special effects were above average. The story line was so-so. Then after a FAIRLY CLEAN dialogue in the movie, the (literally) last sentence spoken had to be a bit vulger (and therefore, out of place given that the movie did not have such dialogue overall).