Monthly Archives: April 2007

Kurt Vonnegut – RIP

Posted on April 12, 2007 | Leave a comment

KurtvonSince it’s Kurt Vonnegut who passed away yesterday we’ll link to his Wikipedia entry since there should be some content about him. He was an interesting and bizzaro author, you should try a few of his books if you haven’t. But what inspired this post is two things, both of them odd and very unrelated.

I hadn’t realized he died yesterday until I got an ad from Border’s Books today trying to sell books in his memory (there was more but it had this at the top of the e-mail ad). I’m not sure if it’s in good taste or not and I remember them doing a few other things like this and while it might be good marketing I’m not sure about the taste part.

Ardvil-22So I never (rarely) watch television previews for next week but last night I did watch them during Lost. As usual they jumped around a lot during the preview and I saw it something for an instant and something seemed off. So I rewound the TiVo, this took about 5 tries since it was only a few frames but I saw a cover of a book. The book was “Ardil-22” (which is Catch-22 in Portuguese) which was written by Kurt Vonnegut Joseph Heller. I’m not sure if this was a coincidence or someone had time to edit it in yesterday at ABC or what. But in hindsight it’s a pretty odd coincidence that it was just a few frames of the preview. I can’t recall if Lost has ever mentioned Kurt Vonnegut (or Joseph Heller) before…

LATER – SO I TOTALLY SCREWED THIS UP: Since it turns out Joseph Heller wrote Catch-22 and not Kurt Vonnegut (Sorry Kurt) but while I’ve read several of Kurt’s books, I don’t think I ever read Catch-22. Plus it turns out that “Catch-22” is the title of the next episode of Lost so that’s the reasoning for that. So I’ve totally goofed up the second 1/2 of this message. There were no coincidences for me to see. And I thought I had tied this together all pretty good too :(

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Brandi Carlile – Sold Out

Posted on April 11, 2007 | Leave a comment

So I hadn’t gotten my tickets to see Brandi Carlile at The Ark (in Ann Arbor), I had looked before but got confused by the floor layout that they show on TicketMaster (here’s a better floor layout) so I didn’t get them. I figured I better get them before they premiered her new video on Grey’s Anatomy tomorrow night since they might sell out. I really wanted to see her in a small venue again but I missed it and they’re all gone :(

She was so good last summer and it was a smaller place and I don’t even think it was sold out. If anyone happens to end up with an extra ticket for the May 9, 2007 show in Ann Arbor, I’ll buy it from you…

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Troops Iraq Stay Extended to FIFTEEN Months

Posted on April 11, 2007 | Leave a comment

So All new troops sent overseas will now stay 15 months. This includes extending current troops stay to fifteen months. This does not guarantee that the US won’t pull out before 15 months from now (that’s a different policy). I’m getting this live off Fox news while I eat lunch (here’s a direct link). Non Deployed troops in the US are still 12 months (that was a little confusing to me since I assume that you sign up for longer, so maybe it’s for Recruited national Guard-types and others? I really don’t understand how any of that works).

That part that I thought was interesting that Defense Secretary Gates verbalized was that he was quite disappointed (as were others in the pentagon) that the decision was made to announce this directly to the press with no advanced notice to the troops or their families (he said something to this point).

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Doctor Who – The Shakespeare Code

Posted on April 8, 2007 | Leave a comment

So I’m really liking the 2007 season of Doctor Who, the second episode of “The Shakespeare Code” was excellent. They’re still introducing the new character, Martha Jones, and it’s working out well, IMHO. I’m trying to figure out how many of the jokes are inside jokes since I’ve watched for two seasons and how many people will get it on the first time around. As I’ve said before they do ignore the technical details about how things work which they illustrated with this episode by having Martha ask all sorts of questions about the time machine and paradoxes by pretty much ignoring them or saying don’t worry…

So they went back in time and had an adventure with William Shakespeare, I’ve never been a huge fan but I do appreciate that all the right people say he’s a genius and I accept that, especially since a lot of writers I really enjoy think he’s a genius. So it’s great that they had a character like The Doctor actually thinks he’s a genius and treated him as such. Lots of Shakespeare jokes, makes me wonder if I missed any…1

Plus, there were a few Harry Potter jokes/references that I thought were great. But I’m getting tired of the Rose references already three episodes now (the first two of the season and the Christmas special which kinda took place between seasons) and while I loved Rose, if we’re going to ignore much of the science (and concentrate on the story) then maybe they should ignore the fact that he’s lost Rose.

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50 Best Tech Products of All Time

Posted on April 6, 2007 | Leave a comment

So PC World has a story on the Best 50 Tech products. Considering a few of the items in the list, I think few things are missing: Skype, one of the early pieces of ZIP/StuffIt software, maybe a Palm (or even Windows) cell phone, a TRS-80, the Sony WalkMan set standards for portable (choose your own) music players and I’m sure I’ll think of a few more later. Half of the software “tools” seem to be things to fix parts/utilities missing from the Windows OS. And there isn’t any software for creating web pages / FTPing files (from the era of Netscape and Eudora) or blocking spam. Should flickr or Google be considered a product? Amazon or eBay? Okay, so I’m getting ahead of myself, lets show the list.

Of the 50 I’ve bolded items owned/used (some were free or work owned for my use) and added comments to many items (even ones I don’t use): Continue reading →

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Google Desktop released for Apple Macintosh

Posted on April 4, 2007 | Leave a comment

So they released Google Desktop for Macintosh, they mentioned this at the Google Blog and the Google Mac Blog (did you know they had a Mac Blog?). It’s the main Google application for desktops and since they’re supporting Macs with this, what’s next (they just started offering free virus protection for Windows from Norton)? I will be trying it especially since I’ve disliked the new search (Spotlight) in Mac OS X for a while now. I’ll try it when I get home, I’m on the go and don’t like to install things when I’m on cell phone dial up (EVDO).

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Doctor Who – The Season Premiere

Posted on April 4, 2007 | 1 comment

I wasn’t ever a Doctor Who fan (not even a bit), a friend mentioned it to me more than a few times but it just wasn’t my cup of tea. But then they started running a new series a few years ago and it seemed okay, but then I started watching it from the beginning of the 2005 season and it was really good. I really enjoy the humor, just a little British with a lot of wit; some of with wit is just barely acknowledged and then they move along (so sometimes you miss it).

This is a perfect episode to start watching the series, it’s the first episode of season three (2007), it’s called ‘Smith and Jones’. She’s Dr. Martha Jones and he checked into the hospital under the name ‘Smith’. The Doctor is a bit out of sorts having lost his last traveling companion (Rose) but the show always has sidekick so we get to be introduced to the new companion. She’s a medical doctor in training who doesn’t get too freaked out about with the strange things that happen and she’ll probably be a great asset to the show. So it kind of re-introduces you to the main characters.

Since the series was restarted they’ve changed both the doctor and his companion/assistant; it’s the start of year two for the doctor and the first episode with the new assistant. The 2005 Doctor, Christopher Eccleston, has been playing the invisible man on Heroes season one. I haven’t seen Rose on anything else yet. Some people will refer to this (2007) as the third season but some die hards will refer to it as the 29th season. I think the BCC is who restarted the numbering but I’m not sure why (but it’s probably due to a 15 year gap in the series). Continue reading →

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The Holiday – review

Posted on April 2, 2007 | 1 comment

So I enjoyed The Holiday but some parts were really really slow. There were parts that really appealed to my sense of humor, but I’d have a hard time recommending it. It’s got Kate Winslet (and Cameron Diaz) and I’ve always had a thing for Kate…

It’s the story of two women who need to get away due to recent men problems and end up doing a home swap. Cameron leaves her huge home in LA to stay in Kate’s tiny place in the little town in England (and vice-versa); Kate really made out on this deal. Of course they meet men and the story goes on from there. One of the parts I really really liked is when Kate was exhausted from the trip and the jet lag and wants to sleep but it’s bright since it’s the middle of the day. Then she find the magical switch that activates the room blinds which slide down and seal the room up likes it’s a bomb shelter it was awesome; that’s how I like to sleep, when it’s pitch black so I could really handle having something like that.

What else? Cameron makes movie previews for a living and that was cool, especially her daydreams about her life as a movie preview. I liked Jack Black’s part, when he’s not too goofy I like him, and the he was pretty good (a little less goofy would have been better, IMHO). The little girls were hysterical(!) but I won’t say anything else about them. That’s it, I wish it had been more exciting but that’s all I got, like I said, I enjoyed it… Continue reading →

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