Category Archives: me + myself + i

Stuff about me, myself and I. If this isn’t enough you can find out more ’stuff’ in the meme category! If it’s in the me category, I generally do not put it in the meme category (except for when I do).

Google is retiring Google Reader?!?

Seriously, Google is retiring Google Reader? I feel like they’re trying to get into every corner of the internet and they’re giving this up? I thought they had the market on this, maybe I wrong and there is something better. But many many feed readers (clients) support this program and they’re giving it up…

Am I expressing my disbelief enough? I’m not even sure what I’d chose as an alternative. I think bloglines is still around (wasn’t it supposed to go away?) but do they support third party APIs? I need to do it on the desktop via the web (and/or a client) and I need to also be able to do it on my iPhone and iPad while keeping all the feeds synced so that I’m not rereading them.

retire-reader.png

I gotta tell you, personally, I think this is going to affect me more than if I heard that gmail would be shut down. I can get and set up and support other e-mail accounts, there are standards there, I don’t think there are standards for syncing feeds and unread feed data, is there? It’s not the only service Google is shutting down.

That said: I’m clearly looking for suggestions for a feed reader that I can use on the web and have client software (apps) on my iDevices that will keep them all in sync. To be clear, I need the feeds themselves to sync but then items I read need to be marked as read on all devices. And I’ve got to figure it out before July 1, 2013!

The Superior Spider-Man really is “superior”

Did I ever tell you I used to be a big comic collector? I had at least 12,000+ items (maybe 15,000): comics, sci-fi stuff, movie posters, movie programs, paperback books and more. Those guys in Big Bang Theory hanging out in the comic shop, that’s pretty much how it used to be; on Wednesday’s the new comics were out and on the weekend we might pedal our bicycles to one of the comic shops nearby. But I haven’t really been active in collecting in over 20 years. For a while I still picked up a few titles and the last dozen years I haven’t really read much at all; some Neil Gaiman stuff, a few recommendations (Invincible, Alias), and whatever they had on free comic day.

But there was a lot of talk on-line as the Amazing Spider-Man was reaching issue 700, so I started reading it. Be warned, huge spoilers follow: The short version is that Doctor Octopus was dying and he managed to swap his mind for Peter Parker’s mind (you do know that PP is the secret identity of Spider-Man?) but here’s the problem: before Peter could figure out how to swap back minds, Doc Ock’s body dies and Otto Octavious’s mind is in Peter Parker’s body (in Spider-man’s body). He is the new Spider-man and no one knows it!

I thought this was the dumbest thing ever, it’s not going to be any good and you know in a year or two somehow Peter is going to come back (somehow). This transitioned into a new title, the egotistically titled “Superior Spider-Man“, where Doc Ock decides he’ll “do it”, he would become a superior Spider-Man. I have to tell you, my doubts were banished and I thought this was a excellent story. Actually, I thought it was excellent until they revealed at the very end that Peter’s mind was still in there and I thought “argh! this was great and they ruined it”, but I was wrong again. It’s been five issues now and it has been excellent. Think of all the things you see in a movie (or a comic book) and think “why are they doing that?” and “why don’t they…?”, well this new Spider-Man does many things differently than the old Spider-Man and it’s working.

You need to remember, Spider-Man / Peter Parker is the “With great power comes great responsibility” guy (actually his Uncle Ben taught him that, the hard way), he takes this seriously and has always been “amazing”. But here’s the thing, Doc Ock is not only a “Superior” Spider-Man, in many ways he’s a being a better Peter Parker too. He’s not perfect, but he’s working pretty good on making his Peter a better Peter. It’s interesting the way that he does things, he’s as smart as Peter (maybe more) but it’s really the way he thinks (and that he has to pretend to be Peter) that gives him different insight into the roll.

At some point, I believe, Peter Parker will be back and it will make for some interesting adjustments for him. I don’t think I’m going to say much more about the current story, maybe you’ll want to read it yourself. (If you can’t find the issues at your local shop or find some kid to lend them to you, you can pre-order it from Amazon in The Superior Spider-Man, (Vol. 1: My Own Worst Enemy) trade paperback.)

The comments of this post are allowed to have spoilers (even more than I’ve revealed above) so if you feel like commenting…

I love learning new things

I love learning. I also like talking (sharing) about things that (I hope) other people are interested in. Today xkcd talks about how many people each day learn something that everybody knows.

Ten Thousand

At their site, if you hover your mouse over the comic you always get an extra thought/punchline/jab. Today’s extra was “Saying 'what kind of an idiot doesn't know about the Yellowstone supervolcano' is so much more boring than telling someone about the Yellowstone supervolcano for the first time.”

xkcd is an excellent comic that talks about life, love, tech, math, science and more. Sometimes it’s just a few frames, sometimes it’s dozens. Sometimes it’s really tall and you have to scroll and once in a while it’s got a little bit of color in it. Sometimes it’s funny and sometimes it’s serious.

The simple things…

It’ll probably be a while before my car hits another milestone. 123456 miles Probably 150,000 miles (if I’m lucky!). Actually, I take good care of my car, so it should last a bit longer.

But ss the title says, it’s the simple things, like hitting a milestone on my car mileage that makes me happy. I’ve got all my gadgets and “stuff” that I use in life, but it’s still these kinds of simple things that still put a smile on my face…

P.S. It’d have been more fun if my car had an old analog odometer that actually rolled over!!!

McRib is Back!!!

It’s back. What more can I really say other than that? I was hungry, didn’t know what I wanted and then I saw a sign…

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Do I need to say that this is what I ended up getting for dinner??

Name a Doctor Who moment that made you cry …

There are many episodes that’s brought a tear or two while watching, I say “are” because re-watching the episode gives the same response. The biggest was probably Vincent and the Doctor, a very emotional episode with The Doctor and Amy dealing with Vincent Van Gogh and some of his issues and fears. Just thinking about it gives me chills… Spoilers follow!

The scene is at the end, with The Doctor is talking to a Museum curator with Vincent listening in:

vincent-museum.gifThe Doctor: I just wondered, between you and me, in 100 words where do you think Van Gogh rates in the history of art?
Dr Black (museum guy): Well… big question, but to me, van Gogh is the finest painter of them all; certainly the most popular great painter of all time: The most beloved; his command of colour; the most magnificent. He transformed the pain of his tormented life into ecstatic beauty. Pain is easy to portray, but to use your passion and pain to portray the ecstasy and joy and magnificence of our world… no one had ever done it before. Perhaps no one ever will again. To my mind that strange wild man who roamed the fields of Provence was not only the world’s greatest artist, but also one of the greatest men who ever lived.

doomsday-cry.pngA few other good tear-jerkers:

  • Turn Left – A few different parts, this is my favorite episode.
  • A Good Man Goes to War – When River Song makes the big reveal to Amy and Rory (every time, and I think I’ve watched this one 17 times now).
  • Doomsday – When Rose and The Doctor get separated forever.
  • Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead – Not the first few times I watched it, but now that things from the future (River’s past) have been revealed it has a lot more significance.
  • The End of Time – David Tennant’s last episode, lots of goodbyes at the end.

But none of those (except the VIncent episode) can really be watched unless you’re a fan already. I’m sure there are more, but these are some of the episodes that I’ve watched a lot, so I’ll limit it to this list.

This is from the 10 day Doctor Who Challenge, which I can’t reference because I have no idea where I found it. I’ve found other 10 day DW and 30 Days, but while similar questions are there, none are identical.

Did you have braces growing up? – Friday Question #160

Did you have braces growing up (or as an adult)? Did you hate them or tolerate them? Were you happy with the results when they were taken off?

I had some kind of braces as a kid, but I know we never completed the process but I don’t recall why? (I didn’t care? Money? It helped some?) But as I got older my top front teeth still stuck out a little and I ended up with my front bottom teeth jammed in together, imagine five teeth jammed in the space of four with a few bing sideways to make them fit. It really didn’t look as bad as it sounds.

When I was in my late 20s (or early 30s) I decided to get them worked on again. Braces image Image courtesy of WikipediaWhy I thought about this I have no idea. I had good dental insurance, maybe the dentist suggested it a few times. I’m not really that vain, so I’m mot sure of the motivator, and like I said the bad part wasn’t really that noticeable; I don’t have a toothy smile and the overbite covered the worst of it. But once I started there was no going back…

They pulled out one of the lower front teeth and put on some braces to shift the others around, I’d have to go in every so ofter to get them to tighten them to shift the teeth even more. The first day I absolutely hated them, I remember being in tears, my mouth and lips ware all scraped up, it was stressful and painful. Plus, I was really hungry!. I remember my girlfriend Jennifer making me some soup that night (I’m not 100% sure she was still my girlfriend at the time or not, but she still took care of me), I really don’t recall a whole lot of kissing during the time I had them on. I’d have gone back the next day and had them removed if it wasn’t for the fact I”d had a tooth pulled and there would be a huge gap.

The Braces Cookbook Pamela Waterman, Brenda WatermanIt made me talk funny at first but that got eventually got bette. But shortly after getting them I ended up having a presentation at “The Governor’s Education Summit” (or something like that), I put all sorts of wax on them and some kind of numbing medicine and just talked and ignored the pain (everything was scraping my lips and cheeks). I did fine, but I certainly paid for it for the next few days with extra scrapes and swelling inside my mouth.

Not only did I have to keep going in for adjustments, I kept chewing some of the parts off the braces, so I was constantly going in for repairs. Eventually it just got to the point where I’d call and just say I was on my way and they’d squeeze me in. I really don’t recall how long I had them on, less than a year I think.

Once I got them off, they looked perfect. The bottom eeth had all moved over and had filled in the spot where the tooth had been removed was. But then a day or two later I could see the teeth were shifting around, so I panicked and went back in and he put in a permanent wire retainer across the back of my front teeth. He also said something like “I was afraid something like that might happen” and I was pretty upset about that, why didn’t he just put the wire in the first place?!? The teeth had already shifted and the damage was done, they looked okay, but they had looked perfect. I was pretty annoyed about this.

So the other part is: Since my bottom teeth weren’t jumbled around, it gave my top teeth some room to move around and they look way better too. This was unexpected and they started looking great too. I mentioned it at the dentist and they disagreed with me, that doing my bottom teeth did not fix my top teeth. I had them go did my original molds out of storage (wherever they keep them) and one they saw how much my top teeth had shifted, pretty much all the staff came into my room to see the change.

Speaking of kissing: the retainer is still in there. No one has ever noticed it (or at least they haven’t asked) and when I’ve mentioned something about it, most people don’t even believe I have something in there. And I’ve never had any problems with it, I thought it’d pop off at some time. I’m not even sure if it’s necessary anymore. It’s still a hassle to floss around, but otherwise not too much of an annoyance.

This is from this week’s Friday Question.

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!