Summer!
First day of summer. Sold a house today. Finished a book (Stephen King's It). Moved my biz to North Carolina. Crazy day. Jam packed full of stuff.
Posted on: 2008-06-20. Permalink
Goodbye, Tallahassee!
It's been fun. But, the pollen. It's a bit much, don't you think?
Posted on: 2008-04-17. Permalink
70% Chance Of Smoke
Wildfires map with smoke plumes. See current map
It's weird when you wake up and the weather forecast for the day is "smoky." Not "Smoky Mountains" smoky, but more like "wildfires burning in the area that fill the air with smoke" smoky. It's been like this for a few weeks now, as we've had a major drought and Northern Florida / Southern Georgia has been burning down around us.
So, remember, kids. Only you can prevent forest fires. Well, and God, with the lightning and the lack of rain making everything as dry as a bowl of shredded wheat (sans milk). Okay, there's actually nothing you can do. Just remember to wear a face mask when you go outside and try not to breathe too much.
Posted on: 2007-05-25. Permalink
Kelle Barrick, “Student Star”
Kelle?s "FSU Featured Student" write-up was just posted on the FSU site. She and only 9 other students were chosen out of over 2000 graduate and undergraduate candidates. Yay, Kelle!
Posted on: 2007-05-01. Permalink
A Nielsen Family At Last
Well, we're officially a Nielsen family for one week. Finally, I can tell somebody about what TV shows I'm obsessed with, and they?ll actually listen to me! I get to help promote stuff like the video game shows on G4 (but not the crappy non-video games shows like Cheaters or that racing show... blech!), the new horror channel "Chiller" (Alfred Hitchcock Presents - prepare to get an increase in ad revenue), the uncensored movies on Fox Movie Channel (take that family values), and Lost (hey, some of us still watch it). I've been waiting for this glorious moment since I was ten years old.
It's funny, but now I feel compelled to watch TV constantly so as to not miss a golden opportunity to plug one of my favorite shows. That's probably not how you're supposed to do it, so hopefully the Nielsen people aren't reading my blog. It's weird that they keep track of pre-recorded shows that you watch later on your DVR, because (I assume) people don't actually watch the commercials when they can fast-forward through them. Of course, the future will bring us lots of product placement and annoying in-show pop-up banners, so I guess that's why they?re bothering.
Anyway, time to go write the Daily Show in my TV Viewing Diary (and probably watch it, too).
Posted on: 2007-04-26. Permalink
Decemberists & Tool
Finally, some shows coming to Tallahassee that aren't country music or blue collar comedy. In April, we're seeing The Decemberists at The Moon and, if we can get tickets, Tool at the civic center. Kelle's more the Toolhead and I'm more the Decemberista, so it works out nicely. The Decemberists tickets were free for students, too, so Kelle got a sweet deal.
Update: An hour after I posted this, I found out that the Tool concert will be rescheduled due to an injury to the drummer. I think Kelle jinxed it. The show was to happen on the day after her birthday, and the last time we were going to see a show for her birthday the main act died.
Posted on: 2007-02-22. Permalink
Steve Jobs Advocates Abolishing Digital Rights Management
Yesterday, Steve Jobs wrote on Apple's web site that he would support selling DRM-free music on the iTunes Music Store. The reason? It's not stopping piracy, iPod sales won't suffer, and it makes for a happier consumer. He's also attempting to redirect the heat from angry Europeans to where it belongs—the recording industry.
I'm all for it. DRM just makes consumers frustrated and spiteful, encouraging them to pirate more. Besides, users can already swap music ripped from their CDs. There's also a misconception that iPods only play music bought from Apple's online store. Jobs said that, on average, a meager 3% of a typical iPod user's music library is from the store, so the other 97% is already unprotected anyway.
In any case, we'll see how the recording industry reacts. I'm not getting my hopes up, though, since greed and paranoia have traditionally kept them from embracing a changing market and adapting to the demands of their consumers.
Read Jobs' Thoughts on Music.
Posted on: 2007-02-07. Permalink
Three Weeks Later...
Today is the first day since I was laid off that I haven't been insanely busy. It was kinda nice. Did a little work this morning. Listened to my new TV On The Radio album (damn, “Wolf Like Me” is such an infectious song...). Caught up on some reading. Very relaxing.
A little backstory: three weeks ago the entire development team at Evolution Multimedia was laid off. I'd been there for seven and a half years, so it was quite a shock. Since then, I've decided (at least for now) to try freelancing full-time. I've picked up a good amount of work since that fateful day, so it's looking promising. Of course, I'd feel more at ease about my little career experiment if Kelle was finished up at FSU and had a full-time job. In any case, I'm still applying at places here in town that I'd like to work at, so if a great full-time job comes around, I'll be inclined to snatch it up.
Finally got around to seeing Pan's Labyrinth this weekend. Very dark and depressing but really amazing. It was actually as much of a political / military / historical film as it was a fantasy / horror film. After that, we had a cheesy 80s fantasy film fest and watched Labyrinth (not as darkly complex as Pan, but it does have David Bowie), Willow, and The Secret of Nimh. The Neverending Story almost made the cut, but we were all falling asleep by that point. The next day was Super Bowl Sunday, so we celebrated traditionally by playing video games, watching movies, and basically doing anything un-football. Kinda sucks that the Bears lost, since they're from my home state, but I'll be more emotionally affected if Scorsese doesn't win Best Director this year at the Oscar's.
Posted on: 2007-02-06. Permalink
Opera On Wii
Well, the Opera browser for Wii finally came out last Friday. I've spent some time with it since then and, while I really enjoy it for watching YouTube videos and playing Flash games, there are definitely some things that could be improved. I'll cut Opera some slack, though, since this is just a 'trial' version and they admit that this installment is limited in features. In any case, here are my personal pros and cons:
The Pros:
- Great for viewing Flash videos. And since YouTube converts all their videos to Flash 7 format, you'll be spending a lot of time there. Perfect for when you have people over and everyone can't fit around your laptop screen.
- Great for playing some Flash games. There are web sites now, like www.wiicade.com, that round up some of the best Wii-friendly Flash games on the net (i.e. games that primarily use pointing and clicking).
- Easy to disable CSS, thus making sites easier to read on your low-resolution TV. Sites that have a good conformance to modern web standards adapt nicely.
- Nice method of zooming in on areas of a web page, although zoom levels could be improved.
- Surfing from your couch with only your remote. A lazy internet surfer's dream.
The Cons:
- No way to view your history. There is a back button, but that's all you get.
- No way to view the address bar, so you never really know where you're at.
- No playback of Quicktime, Windows Media, or MP3 (among other file formats). It'd be nice if we lived in a world where everyone stuck their digital media in a nice Flash wrapper, but that's currently not the case. Which brings me to...
- No Flash 8. Okay, at least they use Flash 7. They claim that it has something to do with Adobe's refusal to release Flash 8 for systems that they don't support or blah blah. At least most sites are still using Flash 7 or lower.
- Difficulty in typing long blocks of text with the Wii keyboard. Try leaving a comment on a web site. I dare you.
- Several sites crash the browser, like gmail.com and pandora.com. I hope it's just something those particular sites can fix, because I'm dying to have internet radio in my living room courtesy of pandora.com.
Anyway, all negatives aside, I still have a lot of fun with it. Okay, 95% of that time is spent on YouTube, but I still think it'd be worth the $5 when the final version is released.
Hope everyone had a great holiday season. We spent Christmas on the beach at St. George Island. Very relaxing.
Posted on: 2006-12-29. Permalink
The Wii Is Mine!
Finally got mii a wii (ha, mii). We stood in line Sunday morning at Toys R Us for a little over an hour. I thought I was making a big effort to get there an hour early, but apparently some people in line at Circuit City had tents. When I got there, I counted up the number of people in front of me and found that I was the 21st person in line. I started feeling kinda hopeless, though, since I assumed the number of wii units they'd have would be 15 or 20. But, luckily, that number turned out to be 21, and I got the very last console they had in stock. It was a glorious day. Still waiting to buy a 2nd controller, though. Why Nintendo didn't ship an equal (or greater) number of controllers to accompany the consoles is still a mystery.
In any case, I've been having a blast with Wii Sports and Super Monkey Ball (and the NES Legend Of Zelda which I bought on the Shopping Channel last night). The controller is super intuitive, and, in the case of Wii Sports, can actually be quite a workout (you can play most games with a flick of your wrist, but half the fun for me is pretending you're swinging a baseball bat or throwing a bowling ball. Yes, I'm a geek...). I'm looking forward to surfing the internet on my Wii when their Opera browser is released. Watching bizarre YouTube videos from my couch will be an amazing thing.
Posted on: 2006-12-06. Permalink
Wii Pre-Order Blues
Why didn't I pre-order a Wii before Sunday? What the hell was I thinking? I figured the PS3s would be sold out, but I didn't realize how fast the Wiis would move off the shelves. Now, I wouldn't be surprised if I can't get one until after Christmas. Ack.
So, Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh are now off The Hobbit project. New Line informed them that their services would not be required and that they were actively seeking a new director. Apparently, it all stems from their unwillingness to commit to the project while New Line and Wingnut Films were in the middle of a lawsuit. New Line wanted a commitment to give them leverage with the lawsuit and Jackson did not want to make the movie on the grounds of it being a "business convenience." Well, nuts to that. Jackson clearly wanted to make The Hobbit, as was the wish of most fans of the LOTR movies. New Line has made a big mistake with this. They'll probably get some hack director like Brett Ratner or Michael Bay who'll take The Hobbit "to the next level." Ah, you gotta love Hollywood execs. Or actually you don't. You can hate them like I do. Hate hate hate. Full story
Friday night, we saw Stephen Colbert at the FSU PowWow. This was his first big speaking engagement since his wonderful oratory at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. As expected, he was hilarious. He even did "The Word" segment from his Comedy Central show. I didn't feel worthy to be in his presence.
Posted on: 2006-11-20. Permalink
2006 Midterm Election Results
Dems regain control of House, may regain control of Senate. Yay.