I don’t want to prolong the death of this laptop

January 9th, 2008 • chatter

While it’s not really dying, the battery is just about shot. I only have xchat, a single terminal open, and Flock with a few tabs open and squeeze out a little over an hour of life now, great for school since classes last over 2 hours. Sure I could pony up and pay Dell another $120 for an extended battery that’s been reported by numerous customers to have a shelf life of a year. I could deal with another year but Macworld is just right around the corner and I’m hoping they’ll finally announce a damn sub-notebook MBP. It’s a stretch but it could happen, it’s been in the rumor mill for years and should be coming to fruition soonish. I mean, I was discussing the specifics of a widescreen iPod a la iPhone/iPod Touch 4 years ago with a friend at work (we had the form factor pegged but not much else) so a sub-notebook sized MBP has been cookin’ for just as long.

I’ve been running both Debian and Ubuntu on this laptop since I got it so I managed to more than squeeze out the money I paid for it but I’m really looking for something new and shiny. I don’t want a 15″ MBP because I just don’t need the extra bulk, I like my 12″ laptop so I’m looking for a similar size. The Asus Eee is a tad small but there’s little advantage to it over my current laptop although lugging around a 7″ sub-note for various meetings and class would be super sweet.

Waiting for Apple to fulfill rumors sucks but so does a dying battery. Now I’m off to find more Web 2.0 goodies for school.

First day of classes

January 7th, 2008 • chatter

I get to go back to school for the first time since late 2005 in a few hours and I’m not really looking forward to it. I’m more worried about where the hell I’m going to park without getting a ticket since I don’t have my parking decal yet or when I can get my books. Tonight’s class is Anthropology of Islam which will probably end up focusing more on African sects of Islam since that is the teacher’s doctoral specialty but overall it should be interesting.

I’m trying to get some things together to help with the new degree such as a digital voice recorder, since I suck at taking notes, and other supplies. I’m looking at getting an iPod for recording lectures but from what I can tell most of the older microphones either do not work with the new generation of iPods or they just had terrible performance. So I’m out on a lam for using something mainstream to record classes for now, as my Neuros HD 30G DAP decided to no longer work after a year of ownership (but not of use).

Some retired TV shows need to stay retired

January 6th, 2008 • chatter

I was flipping through tonight and saw that the new American Gladiators was on NBCHD so I decided to watch. Either the show I watched as a kid was really boring or this new incarnation is just terrible. It looks great in HD however, it felt too…fake. There wasn’t a “real” feeling to the show, it felt somewhat scripted like pro wrestling is. I just get the feeling it’s a ratings job that NBC cobbled together. They brought back almost all of the old events, with some new ones, and brought back a single original Gladiator. I don’t know, this revival just seems kind of bland compared to the original.

Hopefully it’ll run for a season instead of 8 years like the original show.

The latest into the fray

January 6th, 2008 • chatter, movies

Since my mother came down to visit this weekend, it’s cut my movie viewing by, well, almost an entirety. I’ve only managed to squeeze in half of The Royal Tenenbaums and watched About A Boy last night. Both great movies. Tonight we watched The Producers (2006) and For Your Consideration neither of which are a part of my collection. I’d never seen For Your Consideration but it was fantastic and had some great dialogue. I especially loved the latter half of the movie when Catherine O’Hara took some styling tips from Jennifer Coolidge’s days as Stifler’s Mom and had her face taped back to look younger. Great stuff. Classes start on Monday so I’ll have even less time to watch movies but I’ll somehow make watching all of this work but I’m going to guess it’ll take more than a year unless I cut out any series; I can’t logistically fit in three seasons of Entourage, three seasons of Nip/Tuck and years of Macross Saga along with everything else!

Tomorrow means class is almost here and I still need to change my car’s oil, air filter, and replace the valve cover gasket on the Focus! ARG! Need more time!

The choice of the night

January 3rd, 2008 • chatter, movies

Was Blood Diamond and only took 10 minutes to choose this time! Jess bought me the movie probably 2 months ago and it’s sat on the shelf until tonight, day 2 of the Never Ending Movie Stream. I’m really starting to regret wanting to do this as I realize picking a movie everyday will be tough and TV shows will be tougher.

The movie was great, I can see why it got all the award nods it did and why Houson got so many damned awards to take home. I thought it was quite well written even given the holes here and there or continuity issues, I can look past those. I never realized that Rhodesia is now called Zimbabwe, I found that interesting. Personally I think they should’ve picked someone other than Jennifer Connelly for the female lead, I kept flashing back to Requiem For A Dream whenever she showed up. I hope Leo does more serious movies like this and not boring cruft like that stinking sinking boat movie that an ex of mine loved. The movie had great cinematography, excellent performances, but a horrible soundtrack. I don’t think the people of Sierra Leone wanted their war-torn story set to Mac 10 and Nas. That really threw me off throughout the movie, such odd choices for music.

Tomorrow, though technically tonight, will be a tougher choice since my mother is dropping by on Friday and we need to tidy up a bit. Hopefully it’ll be something funny.

Welcome to the never-ending stream of movies

January 1st, 2008 • chatter

Almost two weeks ago I was staring at my overfilled DVD rack and began to realize I have way too many movies. I’ve got too many movies that are still in their original plastic. The capacity was definitely strained by the 28 or so movies that my girlfriend got me for Yule, I really had to rearrange quite a few things to get them all to fit. Realizing that I have about 10 movies and a few TV series I’ve never watched, I decided that I was going to watch every DVD I own in 2008. When tonight rolled around, I realized my own folly: indecision.

I started scanning the rack a few days ago and tried to devise the best way to watch all these movies and TV shows in a year, I just decided to start at the upper left and watch hopefully watch everything. Then I started seeing that I’d blow through all my regular box office movies in a month or so, horror movies would take nearly 3 months, TV shows will probably take a good 4 months and I didn’t even try to figure out how long the foreign movies and anime would take to watch given their extreme length. How the hell did I think I’d fit this all into a single year and still have time to do other things?

Then, again, it’s down to choice. I could watch all my cheesy horror movies and enjoy them, or watch the anime I’ve been meaning to finish for years like Berserk or Macross Saga. Tonight’s choice of movie took almost 20 minutes and I wasn’t even picking, I left Jess do that. After back and forth while I’m mulling over delicious steaks, I just pick out American Psycho. It’s a great choice for eating a big bleeding steak. Much like eating a steak during Cannibal Holocaust was a great choice. Both are great movies for very different and similar reasons.

Jess enjoyed American Psycho and thoroughly enjoyed the dark satire of yuppie culture, I relished in the dementia of the first Christian Bale role I ever really enjoyed, which he definitely enhanced in The Machinist after he played Batman. If tonight’s movie took 20 minutes to find, how the hell am I going to do this for the next 11 months and 30 days?

A supreme exercise in futility

January 1st, 2008 • chatter

So the new year is here and many heads hung low today, no doubt due to capacious celebrating the flip of the calendar. My celebration included much of the same but in less copious amounts and with my dearest of friends. I was interviewed by a friend on what my jobs in the IT/Computer Science field have taught me and the value of staying in academia. Our ever quiet mutual friend LogosX too lent his bountiful knowledge to a 45 minute interview of why most careers suck and how enriching being a college professor can be. The only problem is none of us are professors, yet, although the interviewer is a teacher at Kaplan and does tend to lecture at FAU. When the interview and ensuing discussion is up, I shall link.

We spent the night doing what most people around the world were doing: drinking various alcohols, singing absurd songs, and reveling in the conversations. We saw fireworks, drank champagne, and I watched the Auburn-Clemson bowl game off and on through the night while trying to call people and send text messages. But one thing none of us did was make any New Year’s resolutions. Why not? Most of us had the same answer that we never hold to them and think it’s a silly past time. While I agree wholeheartedly, and haven’t made a resolution in nearly a decade, I can see why people make them. It’s a first hand experience in futility, for the most part. People want to feel self-empowered, like they can declare their entire year will be different and stick to their guns, all the while pounding down beers or emptying expensive flutes of bubbly. Resolutions make people feel like they have self control even though they’re indulging in excess, self control be damned. Self-empowerment feels good, it gives you gestalt, makes you feel like you know what the hell you’re doing. That 9th beer you had makes you feel like a superhero too but it’s not empowering at all. And this is why it’s a futile exercise. Most people know that their resolutions are just something to say to fit in; fitting in can make one feel empowered and in control.

I’m not against making resolutions but I don’t know why people do it year after year of failing to fulfill the last ones. How many times have you heard your friend(s) say they’re going to drop those extra pounds and get in shape only to gain a few extra pounds and have that shape turn into round? Or they’re going to get their finances in order and make a ton of money or win the lottery? It’s as if the majority of people like to fail so they can resolve to fix themselves, only to inevitably fail again. Why set yourself up for disappointment or failure? Just seems to painful to me. Granted there’s a percentage of the population who can make reasonable resolutions and stick to them but I’ve yet to see them as the majority. We’re all a bunch of sadists who just have to forever fix ourselves.

Resolutions bring to mind a great quote I heard years ago, I can’t even remember the source but I swear it was Van Wilder

Worrying is like a rocking chair. It’s something fun to do for a while but it doesn’t get you anywhere.

So why should a stick-to-your-guns-change-myself-forever resolution be any different if you keep making them and fail?