Monthly Archives: July 2011

Apple has more cash than the US Government

According to CNN, Apple now has more cash on hand than the United State government. Wow!!!

“the government had an operating cash balance Wednesday of $73.8 billion.

Tech juggernaut Apple had a whopping $76.2 billion in cash…”

Apple Confidential 2.0: The Definitive History of the World's Most Colorful Company Owen Linzmayer, Owen W. Linzmayer The thing to keep in mind is: isn’t most of the ca$h the government has already allocated for something? This money that Apple has isn’t even allocated to do anything (to our knowledge). Their stock has hit it’s highest numbers ever and they’re likely to release a new iPhone in a month or two when they usually release new iPods and new iPod touches.

The was a rumor the other day they might buy Barnes and Nobel for $1.5 billion, that’s pocket change when they’ve got $75 billion(!) in the bank. Imagine how cheap they could have got Borders if they had wanted it.

FreakAngels – Time to start reading it

I started reading FreakAngels a few months ago, I thought Neil Gaiman mentioned it somewhere (but at this point I can’t find the reference), and if Neil mentions it, I’ve at least got to take a look at it. It’s a good series, it’s from the UK and feels like it. Lots of pages with just artwork, no people and no dialog, and it’s not just that the artwork is great (it is great!) but the pictures tell a story to. It makes me want more, so I’m always left wanting. Freakangels, Vol. 1 Warren Ellis

The whole series, all five volumes (so far) is on line, they release about six pages a week on Friday (about every 3 or 4 weeks it seems like they skip a week) and you can read the whole series from the beginning on-line. I found it a when I was home sick for a few days in a row and read most of it. Just make sure you read Freak Angels from the beginning, if you just go to the main site http://www.freakangels.com/ you start with this weeks’s story.

It’s the story of a bunch of kids, born at the same time on the same day and they’re “connected” but it’s more of a (present day?) post-apocalyptical society where they are trying to make things better; they have abilities / powers to help, but that’s not the only ways they help (they’ve takes a group of regular people to take care of and defend). It’s more complicated than that, but I don’t want to give anything away (there are a few flashbacks and I don’t want to speak out of order).

Sidebar: Reading this series made me think the UK series Misfits, they’re very different story-lines, but the buildings and the accents made me go back and watch both seasons of that series again (they only do six episodes a season).

Freakangels Volume 1 Hardcover Warren Ellis, Paul DuffieldBut I’ve liked the series and sometimes Friday mornings it’s the first thing that I do, see this week’s episode, I’m pretty bummed when it turns out to be a skip week.

They’re winding the last story down, I’m not sure if there is only a week left or only a week left in this volume (I’m going to guess former). I have so many books, I wish there was a universal way of buying these digitally that would always be forward compatible. I think I’ll buy one of the shirts (I just never wear t-shits very often, but it’s the same ones some of the characters wear) or just see if there is a donate button.

I did order a graphic novel that one of the artists colorists did called “Fish and Chocolate” by Kate Brown, I’m enjoying that story so far; I’m savoring it slowly since it was pretty pricey shipped from the UK and was self-published.

So it’s an interesting story, but it’s post-disaster, it’s not a happy-go-lucky story, but there is a nice moment or two. The characters are interesting, but sometimes I got them confused with each other. Otherwise, it’s one of the better graphic novels I’ve read in a long time.

Google + It’s the new “not Facebook”, but it’s not!!!

Sign up for Google+ now! Availability for Google Plus comes and goes, but it’s going right now so give it a try.

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I’m not sure what to do with it yet. But at least I’ve got an account :)

Actually, the only reason that I wanted to hop on was to get “garylapointe” but it doesn’t look like your user id ever shows up in the web address, so not a big deal…

Happy Miracle Day!!

Can’t wait until tonight! Been waiting a year for more Torchwood after their (way too) short 5 episode mini-series last summer. Originally a more mature Doctor Who spinoff (scramble the letters for the anagram). It was previously on BBC but it looks like Starz is running with Torchwood now.

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Gwen Cooper, guns and a happy baby.
What more can you ask from the 21st Century*?

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Capt. Jack Harkness, always the flirt. Even after falling off a building.

Gwen is pretty much a street cop gone super-duper secret-agent. The baby is new, I assume hers and Rhys (her husband) but she might just be rescuing it. Capt. Jack, well let’s just say he’s pretty hard to kill, and decided that Earth is his favorite planet to live on. And the flirt part, he’ll flirt with anything, any gender, any species; not sure how much they’ll follow through with this, since it appears they’re moving to America, I’m treating it as a reboot.


Available in HD.

I actually saw this trailer in the theater the other day. Not in a sci-fi show, but before the new Woody Allen movie…

* “The 21st Century is when everything changes…” although I’m not sure if they’re still following that theme.

Happy Independence Day Everyone!!!

I love fireworks! I hate waiting for them, but I love the show itself! This is a sequence I animated from the show that I saw last night.

If you’re viewing it on a devices that won’t show the animation, it’s probably really boring looking!

This is another U.S. holiday that I’m sure more people forget what it’s for. It’s not the 4th of July, it’s Independence Day, it’s for celebrating our freedom!

Crazy weather

I was cooking dinner and I knew the storm was coming but I thought I’d have time to finish grilling. I didn’t, it started raining and it was like buckets being dumped down. I got SO drenched in the few seconds that I opened the sliding door. The kitchen floor and nearby counter was a mess with all the water that came in the little bit of time I that it was open. There was hail all over the deck, a lot of it larger than the diameter of a quarter(?) I should have gotten some photos of it, but I was drenched and was trying to take care of dinner and the grill and the mess…

Afterwards the clouds just kept billowing around like something out of a sci-fi movie. I shot video but it just didn’t come out well, so I animated these stills; sorry they’re so jumpy but I didn’t know I’d be animating them.

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Then the lightning and thunder came over and over. I shot about 200 pictures (just holding the camera on repeat and changing some settings here and there) and only a few came out.

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I should have gone and got my other camera (and a tripod), I’ve got more settings on that one. But the rain kept coming and going so I wasn’t sure it I could really use it properly. Maybe next time.

And the local fireworks got canceled…