Design Review Time
Yes, it's that time again. Design Review, otherwise known as the meetings that never seem to end. So if anyone needs to find me for the next couple days, I'll probably be in some conference room in Rolling Meadows, waiting my turn to present everything I've been doing for the past few months to the bigshots.
Well, at least there will be copious amounts of food and bottled beverages.
Thursday, July 17, 2003
Wednesday, July 16, 2003
Blogs - The Next Generation
As I've been reading through some of my old blog archives, I was struck with the thought of how much it would suck if one day, Blogger suddenly went under, and all of my stuff was lost. Well, maybe other people wouldn't care about my old stuff, but at least I would be kind of pissed.
So, an idea that has been floating around in my head for a while now is to move my page to an independent server. I'd have to look into how much it costs, but if it's only a couple bucks a month or so to get a fast and reliable host, I think it might be worth considering. And especially if other people who write blogs/xangas wanted to share the server, then it would definitely be worth it.
Some benefits I can think of:
- When Blogspot or Xanga servers are down, our pages would still work. When their servers are slowed, ours should have plenty of bandwidth to be running fine. Basically, it would be nice to not have to depend on their servers so much.
- No banner ads. Unless you want to try to earn a few cents on the side, our pages could be ad-free.
- Easy to back up your archives. Also, I think it's pretty easy to set up Blogger to post to a 3rd party site, so people who use Blogger now (like me) wouldn't have to change a whole lot.
- Easier to host files. You don't have to fool with Imagestation to put up pictures, Comcast to put up music, etc. Everything would hopefully be simple to manage on one server, with everyone given their own directory to organize and stuff.
- More flexibility for expansion. This might be a stretch, but I can kind of envision bigger and better things in the future for the little blogging community we have among us right now. Not just being connected by a "blogring" or something. But for example, maybe we could maintain a page where different people just post up reviews of the latest movie they saw. Maybe dedicate a page that lets people share links to entertaining websites they found, or post funny videos for other people to download. Between the people who read this blog, their friends who have blogs, and their friends' friends, there's a lot of room for growth, and plenty of possible ideas to pursue. But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here.
- More flexibility for creativity. Like if people wanted to add flash to their page or something like that, it would probably be more accessible to do it on a less limiting host than Blogspot or Xanga. Maybe someone could try to program a more reliable commenting system than Haloscan, and share it with everyone on the server.
Anyways, a lot of that might be wishful thinking. But I'm just trying to use my noodle here. If we can get a good host for like 5 bucks/month, and 5 of us get in on it, that's like $1 a month, which is pretty cheap. Of course, I'm sure no one wants to pay any money for something they can get for free. So I might have to sabotage Blogspot and Xanga (just kidding). It really depends on how much people think they could realistically gain from among the benefits I listed above.
Oh well, if I get around to looking up more info, it will be posted here on this blog at a later time. Or if anyone already has info to share, feel free to leave a comment too.
As I've been reading through some of my old blog archives, I was struck with the thought of how much it would suck if one day, Blogger suddenly went under, and all of my stuff was lost. Well, maybe other people wouldn't care about my old stuff, but at least I would be kind of pissed.
So, an idea that has been floating around in my head for a while now is to move my page to an independent server. I'd have to look into how much it costs, but if it's only a couple bucks a month or so to get a fast and reliable host, I think it might be worth considering. And especially if other people who write blogs/xangas wanted to share the server, then it would definitely be worth it.
Some benefits I can think of:
- When Blogspot or Xanga servers are down, our pages would still work. When their servers are slowed, ours should have plenty of bandwidth to be running fine. Basically, it would be nice to not have to depend on their servers so much.
- No banner ads. Unless you want to try to earn a few cents on the side, our pages could be ad-free.
- Easy to back up your archives. Also, I think it's pretty easy to set up Blogger to post to a 3rd party site, so people who use Blogger now (like me) wouldn't have to change a whole lot.
- Easier to host files. You don't have to fool with Imagestation to put up pictures, Comcast to put up music, etc. Everything would hopefully be simple to manage on one server, with everyone given their own directory to organize and stuff.
- More flexibility for expansion. This might be a stretch, but I can kind of envision bigger and better things in the future for the little blogging community we have among us right now. Not just being connected by a "blogring" or something. But for example, maybe we could maintain a page where different people just post up reviews of the latest movie they saw. Maybe dedicate a page that lets people share links to entertaining websites they found, or post funny videos for other people to download. Between the people who read this blog, their friends who have blogs, and their friends' friends, there's a lot of room for growth, and plenty of possible ideas to pursue. But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here.
- More flexibility for creativity. Like if people wanted to add flash to their page or something like that, it would probably be more accessible to do it on a less limiting host than Blogspot or Xanga. Maybe someone could try to program a more reliable commenting system than Haloscan, and share it with everyone on the server.
Anyways, a lot of that might be wishful thinking. But I'm just trying to use my noodle here. If we can get a good host for like 5 bucks/month, and 5 of us get in on it, that's like $1 a month, which is pretty cheap. Of course, I'm sure no one wants to pay any money for something they can get for free. So I might have to sabotage Blogspot and Xanga (just kidding). It really depends on how much people think they could realistically gain from among the benefits I listed above.
Oh well, if I get around to looking up more info, it will be posted here on this blog at a later time. Or if anyone already has info to share, feel free to leave a comment too.
Tuesday, July 15, 2003
Edited For TV
Something that pisses me off is when they edit movies for TV and change what they say. A few examples that come to mind:
- From Home Alone, Buzz telling Kevin "I wouldn't let you sleep in my room if you were growing on my [butt]"
- From Happy Gilmore, when he's fighting Bob Barker: "The Price is Wrong, [BOB]!"
- From Can't Hardly Wait, after the confrontation between Mike Dexter and Aman-duh, some random girl at the party shouts "[Freak]!"
- From Austin Powers, at the card table: "My name is Number 2, and this is my associate, Alotta [Cleavage]"
- From Austin Powers, when Dr. Evil is informed that his ozone layer plan won't work: "[Shoot]"
Ok, I understand that there are censorship regulations and the TV people are just covering their [butts] from FCC violations or whatever. And it's better than cutting out the whole thing. But man, sometimes censorship is just stupid. I hate how people have to be so uptight about everything, that they have to mess up a quality moment in a quality movie (such as the ones I listed above). I'm sure there are plenty of other examples I'm missing too.
You know, the whole thing is a lot like taking a perfect piece of art, and then drawing over certain parts with a crayon. Or, imagine someone putting pants on one of Michaelangelo's nude sculptures. It's just not right. (yes, I'm comparing Can't Hardly Wait to the work of Michaelangelo)
They say it's to protect the children. Yeah right, like kids don't hear words like [Bob] and [freak] every day at school anyways. I know I did. Hey, I bet a lot of them hear much worse at home from their own parents. And that's who is supposed to be "protecting the children" to begin with, the parents. If you don't want your kids to be hearing those words, don't let them watch those movies. Chances are, they are gonna hear them somewhere or another, so I figure once I have kids, the best I can do is give them a friendly beatdown any time they use words like that.
Either way, all I'm saying is, just because certain parents don't take responsibility for raising their own kids, I shouldn't have to suffer by seeing my favorite movies on TV being messed up by cheesy editing.
Something that pisses me off is when they edit movies for TV and change what they say. A few examples that come to mind:
- From Home Alone, Buzz telling Kevin "I wouldn't let you sleep in my room if you were growing on my [butt]"
- From Happy Gilmore, when he's fighting Bob Barker: "The Price is Wrong, [BOB]!"
- From Can't Hardly Wait, after the confrontation between Mike Dexter and Aman-duh, some random girl at the party shouts "[Freak]!"
- From Austin Powers, at the card table: "My name is Number 2, and this is my associate, Alotta [Cleavage]"
- From Austin Powers, when Dr. Evil is informed that his ozone layer plan won't work: "[Shoot]"
Ok, I understand that there are censorship regulations and the TV people are just covering their [butts] from FCC violations or whatever. And it's better than cutting out the whole thing. But man, sometimes censorship is just stupid. I hate how people have to be so uptight about everything, that they have to mess up a quality moment in a quality movie (such as the ones I listed above). I'm sure there are plenty of other examples I'm missing too.
You know, the whole thing is a lot like taking a perfect piece of art, and then drawing over certain parts with a crayon. Or, imagine someone putting pants on one of Michaelangelo's nude sculptures. It's just not right. (yes, I'm comparing Can't Hardly Wait to the work of Michaelangelo)
They say it's to protect the children. Yeah right, like kids don't hear words like [Bob] and [freak] every day at school anyways. I know I did. Hey, I bet a lot of them hear much worse at home from their own parents. And that's who is supposed to be "protecting the children" to begin with, the parents. If you don't want your kids to be hearing those words, don't let them watch those movies. Chances are, they are gonna hear them somewhere or another, so I figure once I have kids, the best I can do is give them a friendly beatdown any time they use words like that.
Either way, all I'm saying is, just because certain parents don't take responsibility for raising their own kids, I shouldn't have to suffer by seeing my favorite movies on TV being messed up by cheesy editing.
Monday, July 14, 2003
- I think part of the reason I don't sleep well is because of my mattress. It's soft and comfortable, but I noticed that I always feel so much more refreshed when I sleep on the stiffer bed at home in Darien. I don't toss and turn as much, and I don't wake up in the middle of the night either. It seems that stiffness of surface is key. Maybe I should just sleep outside on the concrete in a sleeping bag from now on.
- A highlight from the weekend: A few hours of No Limit Hold'em with the boys at Rod's graduation party. It was good times, so I think we should make it a regular thing. Except, I would feel too much like a 40-year old guy having "Poker Night" with his buddies to escape from his wife for a day out of the week.
- I think the main reason we all decided to play Hold'em that night was probably because they have been showing the World Poker Championships on ESPN a lot lately. Makes me wonder about how much TV influences our lives, especially subconsciously. For example, I always find myself itching to play football more during NFL season, and softball more when it's baseball season. It's not just the weather, it's the exposure to watching games of each sport in each case. Something about the visual effects of seeing a nice tackle, a nice touchdown catch on TV must trigger the desire to play football with your friends. Same goes for watching baseball, and now Poker.
Then again, I'm probably just overanalyzing it like I do to everything else. But it does make you wonder if seeing too much violence on TV, movies, video games, etc. really does cause people to become more violent. I've never really believed in that school of thought, mostly because it seems like a cheap excuse for people who commit violent crimes. I mean, it's quite a jump to go from watching someone get murdered, to murdering someone yourself. But there are always the sickos who enjoy killing for some reason, and who knows how they got to be that way?
See, normal people (like me) watch a show like Jackass and just laugh about it. It's quality entertainment. But stupid teenagers can watch the show and end up thinking that it would be a good idea to jump off a moving car or something. In the same way, normal people might play Mortal Kombat II (or, for this generation of controversial video games, GTA: Vice City), and just have fun ripping a guy's heart out after kicking his ass in round 2. But what about the wacko kids out there who are mentally ill or emotionally unstable? You gotta figure that out of all the people playing this game, someone out there might grow up and end up becoming obsessed with ripping people's hearts out from playing MKII as a kid. In that case, who do you blame? You can't expect the video game companies to be responsible, when their game is perfectly fine and fun for 99.9% of people who play it. But for that 0.1% of sick people, they wouldn't have turned into violent killers if not for playing MKII.
Dang, my head is starting to hurt. My brain is running on empty, and I think I need to take a nap to avoid thinking.
- A highlight from the weekend: A few hours of No Limit Hold'em with the boys at Rod's graduation party. It was good times, so I think we should make it a regular thing. Except, I would feel too much like a 40-year old guy having "Poker Night" with his buddies to escape from his wife for a day out of the week.
- I think the main reason we all decided to play Hold'em that night was probably because they have been showing the World Poker Championships on ESPN a lot lately. Makes me wonder about how much TV influences our lives, especially subconsciously. For example, I always find myself itching to play football more during NFL season, and softball more when it's baseball season. It's not just the weather, it's the exposure to watching games of each sport in each case. Something about the visual effects of seeing a nice tackle, a nice touchdown catch on TV must trigger the desire to play football with your friends. Same goes for watching baseball, and now Poker.
Then again, I'm probably just overanalyzing it like I do to everything else. But it does make you wonder if seeing too much violence on TV, movies, video games, etc. really does cause people to become more violent. I've never really believed in that school of thought, mostly because it seems like a cheap excuse for people who commit violent crimes. I mean, it's quite a jump to go from watching someone get murdered, to murdering someone yourself. But there are always the sickos who enjoy killing for some reason, and who knows how they got to be that way?
See, normal people (like me) watch a show like Jackass and just laugh about it. It's quality entertainment. But stupid teenagers can watch the show and end up thinking that it would be a good idea to jump off a moving car or something. In the same way, normal people might play Mortal Kombat II (or, for this generation of controversial video games, GTA: Vice City), and just have fun ripping a guy's heart out after kicking his ass in round 2. But what about the wacko kids out there who are mentally ill or emotionally unstable? You gotta figure that out of all the people playing this game, someone out there might grow up and end up becoming obsessed with ripping people's hearts out from playing MKII as a kid. In that case, who do you blame? You can't expect the video game companies to be responsible, when their game is perfectly fine and fun for 99.9% of people who play it. But for that 0.1% of sick people, they wouldn't have turned into violent killers if not for playing MKII.
Dang, my head is starting to hurt. My brain is running on empty, and I think I need to take a nap to avoid thinking.
Wednesday, July 09, 2003
Notes
- Bought 3 DVDs the other day for $45: There's Something About Mary (Collector's Edition), Can't Hardly Wait, and Happy Gilmore. This increases my DVD collection from 4 to 7. Now I need to either get a DVD player or hook up my computer to my TV, so I can watch them on something bigger than a 14" screen.
- I guess you can't expect much out of high school kids, but the employees at Best Buy are either really stupid, ignorant, or just liars. I was looking at the PS2 display, and I asked the guy there if he knew anything about the newer models that do progressive scan and have remotes and stuff. It would be one thing if he just said "I don't know", because I'd understand. But then he had to start saying stuff like "oh, that's just misinformation, don't believe in that". Since I knew I wasn't talking about "misinformation", I was like "hmmm.... are you sure, because I've heard about this and read about this from a bunch of different sources". So he paused, before continuing on with his little "that was just misinformation, you should ignore it" spiel. Man... stupid employees piss me off. The reasons left to shop at Best Buy instead of getting everything online are getting fewer and fewer.
- Does anyone else think that the whole country is getting Punk'd by Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, and Bruce Willis? That's my theory, because I just don't think that Ashton Kutcher is really dating Demi Moore. For Demi and Bruce, it benefits them because they are both in Charlie's Angels 2 (albeit minor characters), and the added publicity probably translates to higher earnings from the movie. For Ashton, it benefits him because he likes to punk people, and what could be bigger than punking an entire nation that is hopelessly obsessed with celebrity couples?
By the way, doesn't it also seem convenient that Justin Timberlake started seeing Cameron Diaz a few weeks before the opening of Charlie's Angels? Kind of like a couple months ago, when Colin Farrell was seen with every hot girl in Hollywood just as his movies were coming out. Maybe Cameron D is using JT for publicity. But hey, I'm sure he wouldn't complain too much about being used.
- A couple people have told me that Terminator 3 is entertaining, so I want to see it. Too bad I don't think anyone would go with me, it may end up having to be one of those "Loser Rentals" for me. I'll add it to Blue Crush on my LR list, of DVDs that I will probably end up watching alone on some Friday night in the future.
Oh, and I can't believe Arnold Schwarzenegger might run for governor in California. Even worse is that people there might actually vote for him. I mean, have they not seen his movies? He's not even good as an actor, how can he possibly be good as a governor? And when he talks, the Unintentional Comedy of it all has me laughing for hours. Can you imagine him giving a speech about some political issue and actually expecting anyone to take it seriously? "Up and at-dem! Up and at-dem!" "My eyes! The goggles do nah-thing!"
- Bought 3 DVDs the other day for $45: There's Something About Mary (Collector's Edition), Can't Hardly Wait, and Happy Gilmore. This increases my DVD collection from 4 to 7. Now I need to either get a DVD player or hook up my computer to my TV, so I can watch them on something bigger than a 14" screen.
- I guess you can't expect much out of high school kids, but the employees at Best Buy are either really stupid, ignorant, or just liars. I was looking at the PS2 display, and I asked the guy there if he knew anything about the newer models that do progressive scan and have remotes and stuff. It would be one thing if he just said "I don't know", because I'd understand. But then he had to start saying stuff like "oh, that's just misinformation, don't believe in that". Since I knew I wasn't talking about "misinformation", I was like "hmmm.... are you sure, because I've heard about this and read about this from a bunch of different sources". So he paused, before continuing on with his little "that was just misinformation, you should ignore it" spiel. Man... stupid employees piss me off. The reasons left to shop at Best Buy instead of getting everything online are getting fewer and fewer.
- Does anyone else think that the whole country is getting Punk'd by Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, and Bruce Willis? That's my theory, because I just don't think that Ashton Kutcher is really dating Demi Moore. For Demi and Bruce, it benefits them because they are both in Charlie's Angels 2 (albeit minor characters), and the added publicity probably translates to higher earnings from the movie. For Ashton, it benefits him because he likes to punk people, and what could be bigger than punking an entire nation that is hopelessly obsessed with celebrity couples?
By the way, doesn't it also seem convenient that Justin Timberlake started seeing Cameron Diaz a few weeks before the opening of Charlie's Angels? Kind of like a couple months ago, when Colin Farrell was seen with every hot girl in Hollywood just as his movies were coming out. Maybe Cameron D is using JT for publicity. But hey, I'm sure he wouldn't complain too much about being used.
- A couple people have told me that Terminator 3 is entertaining, so I want to see it. Too bad I don't think anyone would go with me, it may end up having to be one of those "Loser Rentals" for me. I'll add it to Blue Crush on my LR list, of DVDs that I will probably end up watching alone on some Friday night in the future.
Oh, and I can't believe Arnold Schwarzenegger might run for governor in California. Even worse is that people there might actually vote for him. I mean, have they not seen his movies? He's not even good as an actor, how can he possibly be good as a governor? And when he talks, the Unintentional Comedy of it all has me laughing for hours. Can you imagine him giving a speech about some political issue and actually expecting anyone to take it seriously? "Up and at-dem! Up and at-dem!" "My eyes! The goggles do nah-thing!"
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