Words of Wisdom...

Beware the peddlers of certainty, or was Mark Twain once said:

The easy confidence with which I know another man’s religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.

Filler Arcs...

Most anime are created after a successful run (both long and short) in the manga world, that is, Japanese comics. Most run for a season or two (13-26 episodes), then end, typically well before the manga which is usually on going and can run for years. Some series however buck this trend and run for what seems like forever. A famous example of this was Dragon Ball Z which has premiated the mainstream enough over in the west that at least some people out there know what I'm talking about.

The only problem with this is, manga chapters are released at a rate of 1 chapter a week with breaks usually only for things like Golden Week or the main writer taking a quick vacay. Anime, released at a rate of 1 episode a week, covers more than a single chapter typically. Eventually the anime starts to catch up with the manga, or to put it another way, the show starts running out of story. To combat this, most long running anime, do what is known as a filler arc, or an alternate storyline that exists outside the timeline of the manga but doesn't adversely affect it. The thing is, filler arcs universally suck.

They have to keep making episodes of anime but they can't have any real plot because they can't do something that will affect the actual story taking place in the manga, which is considered the official universe if you will. Well two of my long running animes have recently started their filler arcs and after an episode or two, the trend continues. They officially suck. Oh well. Luckily I have a large backlog of movies to go through. Next up: Slumdog Millionaire. Let's hope it's not all hype.

Quote of the Day...

People are just morons in the movie, and they don't die, which isn't fair.

- Win, talking about the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Why Rush Sucks...

He says he hopes Obama fails. He knows that if Obama fails, this nightmare economic situation we're in will get even worse for everyday Americans and he just doesn't care as long as his side gets back into power. Don't believe me? Hear it for yourself. God he sucks.

Weekend Recap...

Lots to report but since I missed my deadline last week (though I thankfully received an extension) I haven't had time to really blog about it. First up, Jorge turned 31 on Sunday and we spent Saturday doing the bar crawl in his hood, North Park.

The first stop was a cool microbrew bar called Toronado. Right as I came in I realized that I didn't recognize a single beer in the display fridge behind the bar. The sheer variety of them was a little bit intimidating. But with some friendly bartender help we were all able to select a brew that best matched our preferences. Well all except Jiyon who requested a beer that was "low in calories but high in alcohol content." According to the bartender, such a thing doesn't exist. LOL.

Next up was a small bar/club called The Office. It was basically pitch black in there with some where soap opera playing on the flat screen behind the bar. But it had two big things working in its favor. Dirt cheap drinks and really good old school hip hop. There was also this eerie and slightly distrubing life size cut out of Barack Obama in the corner. Not sure what to make of that.

The final stop of our bar crawl was a club who's escapes me at the moment. By then I was fairly inebriated, though not as much as Jorge or Kyle (who actually freestyled his way into the club). After a few beers and songs, we headed back to Jorge's for some late night Mexican. The drive home was longer than I remembered. It was times like that one that make me miss living in downtown.

On Sunday, Chinese New Years, we all met back up at Van Hoa's for some post-drinking pho. Good company and good food. Can't really ask for more. Even got a bun boa to go. Spent the rest of Sunday recouping. Though later on, Jon came by to burn some CDs and let me know that he had given Steve his 30 day notice to move out, but more on that later. I should probably get back to work.

Brave New World...

I never really thought about it but the geotag apps in my iPhone 3G can be down right creepy.

China Goes Universal...

If a country like China with 1.3 billion, with a B, people launches a plan to have universal healthcare by 2011, it just shows how truly behind the times we are as a country compared to the rest of the world.

The Things We Do...

To each other sometimes defy belief. I mean seriously.

The Grind...

Work is killing me. Deadline tomorrow. Not even close. The weekend might be forfeit at this point. Sigh.

Finally...

President Obama's Inaugural Address:

My fellow citizens:

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.

So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land - a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America - they will be met.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted - for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things - some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.

Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions - that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act - not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions - who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them - that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works - whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account - to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day - because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control - and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart - not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort - even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West - know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us today, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment - a moment that will define a generation - it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

This is the source of our confidence - the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed - why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

"Let it be told to the future world...that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive...that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]."

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

T-minus One...

Tomorrow we bid farewell to our 43rd president and welcome our first African-American president. Personally it'll be my 5th president. I was too young to remember Carter, but I do remember vividly Ronald Reagan being the president when I was young, naive and thought it was the biggest job in existence, maybe it still is.

I grew up in Southern Calfironia, and my parents were Reagan Republicans. Thus by proximity and inheritance, so was I. San Diego, to this day, is still fairly conservative. Shedding those political ideas probably came easier than shedding my Catholic ones, but both were a result of self-reflection about what I actually believed, and not what I was told to growing up.

These days I'm more center-left than anything else, with some right leaning tendencies. I don't really get people who are all left or all right. No one can be entirely liberal or conservative. People are usually a spectrum of ideas, not the margins. If they are, they probably didn't take enough time to think about their positions. Not sure what the point of this post was, I just kinda rambled on. Oh well. Inauguration Day tomorrow. Stay tuned for change... I hope.

Trust Issues...

Like many I use customer reviews to help me make an informed purchase. Turns out, those reviews aren't always so trustworthy. Seems Belkin has been paying people to write 5 star reviews for them on Amazon and they got caught doing so. Ouch.

Modern Convenience...

I got a care package from Amazon today with some new toys, among them the one below. How did I ever live without you?


And before you ask, yes I'm that lazy.

Best Blogs of 2008

The 2008 Weblog Award Winners. Nice to see a few of the blogs I frequent, some on a daily basis, made the cut.

Edit: If the best travel blog doesn't make you want to quit your job, travel the world and indulge in the cuisine and culture of other countries, something is wrong with you.

Bye Gones...

Paul Krugman doesn't think the incoming administration should just forgive and forget all the past indiscretions of the outgoing one. If no one is above the law, then those who break it must be prosecuted. There's no room for ambiguity.

I’m sorry, but if we don’t have an inquest into what happened during the Bush years — and nearly everyone has taken Mr. Obama’s remarks to mean that we won’t — this means that those who hold power are indeed above the law because they don’t face any consequences if they abuse their power.

Water Landing...

In case you've been living under a rock, a jetliner blew one of its engines yesterday and had to make an insane water landing on the Hudson River. I guess those safety guides actually are worth something. Who'd a thunk it? I'll inform Tyler Durden.

Really, Really Safe Sex...

Found this over on the Daily Dish. Pretty hilarious ad.



And for more fun, some bloopers.

Dead of Winter...

I think I have weather envy. I was over on the blog of one my favorite authors, and he was posting about how dreadfully code it is in the UK currently. It's sometimes easy to forget that at this moment, we're in the dead of winter. But I look outside and see a cloudless and sunny blue sky. Cliched for southern California no doubt, but true. I drove to pick up some sushi for lunch earlier and noted the 75 degrees temperature. And over the last few weeks, I've complained about the bitter cold streak we've had, but in truth it only got down to around 40 degrees. A warm winter day in some parts but uncharacteristically cold for San Diego.

The truth is I often think it would be nice to have real seasons. To worry about the winter snow falls and spring showers. To have to open a chest of winter clothes full of wool jackets and leather gloves. To have to shovel snow off the drive way or worry about getting snowed in. Or maybe it's just one of things you wish for but don't really want, just for a change in the monotony of a never ending, painfully unvarying cycle of weather most would be thankful for. If we did get those things, I'd probably be writing wistfully about how nice constant temperate weather would be.

FANatic...

Now I'm a pretty big Star Wars fan, but this guy puts me to shame.

Bringing Order to Chaos...

I've never been the biggest fan of iTunes. It just doesn't seem to work very smoothly on PCs. I hear that this isn't the case on Macs but I remain skeptical. Maybe it's just a bad port, who knows. But the hard truth is my mp3 collection has reached a point of critical mass that makes it almost unmanageable. I've tried sorting them by genre, alphabetically and more recently just by year, but using directories and XP's file system has never been the most efficient solution. So yesterday Tom was showing me some of iTunes filter options and afterwards, I decided to undertake a project to import a large portion of my mp3 library into iTunes to see if it would actually make things better.


But the task is both tedious and time-consuming. It is a three step process of renaming the files, retagging them, then importing them into iTunes hoping that iTunes' database can find the album in order to properly display the artwork in coverflow. There are quite a few areas that can cause snags along the way. I went ahead and processed 8 gigs of my more recent mp3s and already I can see the advantage of using iTunes with its Genius feature in order to automatically generate random playlists. Plus by using my iPhone's Remote app, I would be able to control my entire mp3 library from my phone.

So far so good, but I just moved over the majority of my Alternative/Rock mp3s to my new dedicated mp3 hard drive, nearly 40 gigs worth of music. This is by far the largest genre of music I have, and by that token the biggest hurdle I have to overcome in order to finish this project. I've already decided to give up on trying to organize my gigs of classical music or the gigs of singles I have from the late 90s and early 2000s. The design of iTunes facilitates the albumization (I just made that word up) of music, which is odd considering buying songs individually on iTunes was one of its early strengths. Hopefully when I'm done, listening to music will be an even more enjoyable experience.

The End of Print Media?

At least one newspaper of note, isn't going down without a fight.

... something hopeful has been going on: a kind of evolution. Each day, peculiar wings and gills poke up on the Times’ website—video, audio, “drillable” graphics. Beneath Nicholas Kristof’s op-ed column, there’s a link to his blog, Twitter feed, Facebook page, and YouTube videos. Coverage of Gaza features a time line linking to earlier reporting, video coverage, and an encyclopedic entry on Hamas. Throughout the election, glittering interactive maps let readers plumb voting results. There were 360-degree panoramas of the Democratic convention; audio “back story” with reporters like Adam Nagourney; searchable video of the debates. It was a radical reinvention of the Times voice, shattering the omniscient God-tones in which the paper had always grounded its coverage; the new features tugged the reader closer through comments and interactivity, rendering the relationship between reporter and audience more intimate, immediate, exposed.

Working As Intended...

For all my cynicism towards government and politics, a case in which the more you know the more depressing it becomes, there are moments of optimism and amazement that it sometimes actually works as intended. Our new 111th Congress is pushing forward this week with an expansion of SCHIP, the health insurance bill for families with children that Bush famously vetoed twice bending to special interests in the insurance lobby over bipartisan support in Congress. While the vote may happen while Bush is still president, the bill wouldn't actually get to the White House until after Obama takes office. Times they are a changing.

Audience Atomization Overcome...

Recently I've been watching a lot of future technology shows on the Science Channel centered around either eco-technology or human enhancement technology. It's scary and exciting to think how our world and even ourselves will change in the next ten or twenty years. As someone who was around for the birth of things like the answering machine, the ATM, the web, the cellphone, and the laptop, things that are so prevalent in our lives today they have become indispensable and and at the same time invisible, I know that technology is expanding at an exponential rate. Its ability to affect our lives and our society is almost immeasurable. Given that, it's easy to forget that it is affecting other things besides adding more convenience to our lives.

Technology has been for quite some time, also changing how we connect and relate to each other. Most people are familiar with social networking sites like Myspace, Facebook, and even Blogger, the site driving this website. But it also shaking the foundation of other more unconscious relationships such as the one between us (the audience) and mass media. Jay Rosen over at PressThink explains it in detail. An interesting read for those who are interested in such things (like me).

Now we can see why blogging and the Net matter so greatly in political journalism. In the age of mass media, the press was able to define the sphere of legitimate debate with relative ease because the people on the receiving end were atomized— meaning they were connected “up” to Big Media but not across to each other. But today one of the biggest factors changing our world is the falling cost for like-minded people to locate each other, share information, trade impressions and realize their number. Among the first things they may do is establish that the “sphere of legitimate debate” as defined by journalists doesn’t match up with their own definition.

Canadian Beer Fridge...

Ivana sent me this... LOL.

Locked In, Almost...

I wish this weather would make up its mind. I just get my central heat fixed and wouldn't you know it, the cold snaps and we are back to 70 degree plus weather once again. The flux in temperature is playing havoc with my immune system. So basically I've been sick on and off for the last week or so, and when I'm sick my sleep schedule gets thrown completely out of whack. So I woke up late today but as it turns out just in time to avoid something pretty inconvenient.

I got ready just like any morning, grabbed my bag, and headed out the door. But as I approached the parking lot something struck me as odd. My car appeared to be the only one in the parking lot except for a massive truck, similar to the ones that haul gasoline but shorter. When I got closer, I realized what the truck carried the liquid asphalt they use to repave parking lots. Somehow I had missed all the no parking signs yesterday warning tenants that management had chosen today to repave the entire parking lot. My heart seized for a second as I realized that my car might be locked in by a sea of slow drying dark asphalt, a prison of my own inattention.

Luckily there was one narrow path around the truck and out of the parking lot. A few minutes later and I would have been completely locked in. I was quickly able to flag down the construction workers, get them to momentarily stop, and maneuver my car to freedom. As I left the parking lot I could see where all the other cars had gone. They lined the sidewalks of the street just outside the parking lot all the way down to the next complex and beyond. I gave a sigh of relief realizing that all I would be today was late to work, and not stranded at home with no viable transportation. Sometimes it pays to be lucky.

Best Job in the World...

The Australians, in a move to promote tourism, might have just created the one of the best jobs in the world. Check it out and know envy, or better yet, apply!

This Week in the Kitchen...

This week, I expanded my weekly menu to include salmon and continued to prefect some staple side dishes. Below, baked salmon basted in lemon juice, horseradish sour cream mashed potatoes with scallions, and green beans with caramelized onions.


I also saw what looked like an easy but tasty recipe for lemon blueberry cheesecake bars dusted with powdered sugar, so I made that as well. I'm distributing them to friends and family so I don't eat them all myself. So far, they seem to be a big hit.

Government Isn't the Problem

For the full video, check out MSBNC.

Pen Trick Fail...

Win sent me this. It made me LOL. Enjoy.



Can someone say Darwin Award?

I Give You, The Future...

Well it's finally happened, LG introduces the watch phone.

Public Transportation, Public Execution?

Gordon sent me this. Turns out there was a fatal shooting of a civilian by a BART officer in Oakland on New Years Eve. The problem was the victim was at the time of the shooting, laying prone on the ground with his hands behind his back with the cop standing over him. To compound issue the entire incident was video taped from numerous angles by bystanders standing on the platform as the confrontation unfolded. That video has since propagated through cyberspace and taken on a life of it's own. The officer in question has since resigned rather than to talk to the press about the incident. And now we have riots. Great way to start off the new year bay area.

People's Choice? Not Quite...

The news isn't that the People's Choice Awards is a corporate-sponsored, focus-group marketed sham, but that someone actually wrote about it.

Even as mindless distraction, this awards show was a failure. There was no suspense; every category could be easily predicted by remembering who you'd already spotted in the audience. Would the "Favorite Rock Song" be "All Summer Long" by Kid Rock, or those other two thingies performed by people who were not currently located inside the Shrine Auditorium? To quote "winner" Rock: What a surprise. Chris Brown accepted his "Favorite Combined Forces" award (for "No Air" with Jordin Sparks) "live via satellite" from Dublin, Ireland -- where by my calculations it would have been approximately 3:30 in the morning.

Burn? LOL.

Cooking the Books...

It's good to know that America doesn't have a monopoly on financial fraud. Way to go India!

The Day After...

As a deadline or, as we call it at work, a code cut off approaches pressure builds and stress levels rise. Especially if the milestone corresponds with a major contractual obligation, such as the one we had yesterday. Afterward, the sudden release is like the exhalation after a swimmer breaks the surface of the water.

Days of frantically scurrying around are replaced by hours of lax boredom waiting for the next list of problems to solve which my manager says will be released tonight. Sadly I won't be at work tomorrow (9/80 for the win!), so that pile of work will have to keep till next week. And that in a nutshell is work for me these days. No more, no less.

Desktop Resign...

My attempt at redesigning my desktop a little bit in order to increase my efficiency. I tried to make it as clutter free as possible and moved the icons which are normally on the top left to the bottom left so they wouldn't always get the way of my media players. I also added custom icons and Windows gadgets (similar to Vista without the need to install Vista). A couple of things that aren't visible from a screen shot are a virtual desktop environment similar to Linux and a program to cycle my background image every five minutes (I get bored of looking at the same thing all the time). I reduced the size of the image since most people don't run at 1920x1200.

Ninja Invasion!

As promised, I got my resizing scripts working, so here are the pics, the best costumes of New Year's Ninjas and Geishas Birthday Party!

Fat Sumo!

Bear Ninja?

White Ninja

Ninja Turtle!

For more pictures go to A Glimpse Inside Gallery->Other Events->2008.12.31 Ninjas and Geishas!

Almost forgot the birthday boy, DJ Vu. Happy 30th buddy.

Sign of the Times...

You know things are rough when the rich start killing themselves. I mean this guy was the 94th richest guy on the planet.

"The desperate situation of his companies caused by the financial crisis, the uncertainties of the last few weeks and his powerlessness to act, have broken the passionate family entrepreneur and he took his own life," a family statement said.

Words of Wisdom...

George Orwell once said:

All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage -- torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians -- which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by 'our' side ... The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.

I think Orwell's words still hold relevance today, from the American invasion of Iraq to the Israeli invasion of Gaza. Nationalism so completely blankets the enemy in the cloak of the other that any action against that enemy can be rationalized and justified.

Upgrades...

Normally I build a new PC every two years or so, just to keep up with technology and what not. But with times being what they are (economically) and no real need for upgrading the speed of my PC, I decided to just go with a few minor upgrades. So yesterday I received in the mail a new Samsung 750 MB hard drive and a i-Rocks 12-in-1 USB 2.0 card reader.

I got the new hard drive because a lot of the new content available now is in HD, which makes it four times as large as before. And I got the card reader because 1) I broke the front USB ports on my computer case a while back and reaching behind the case to plug in my jump drive and iPhone is a pain and 2) so I can finally get pictures off my camera. That means as soon as I fix my PHP scripts that automatically resize my photos for my image galleries, AGO should have new pictures again. Yay :)

The hard drive was OEM, which stands for Original Equipment Manufacturer. It basically means barebones. All I got was the hard drive in a plastic case, no cables, no manual, not even a box. I pulled out my case, slid open the cover, pulled out my hard drive bay, and attached my new drive. I booted it up and nothing. BIOS recognized it but Windows didn't. Doh! I forgot I needed to partition and format the drive first. So I pop in my Windows CD, set my BIOS to boot off CD, and commenced to format the drive. After that it was smooth sailing. Luckily I knew what I was doing.

But during the course of the installation, I got to thinking, how is a lay person, that is someone who is totally computer illiterate suppose to know to do all that? In this age of Plug-and-play, I forget sometimes that certain tasks still require a moderate degree of computer knowledge. I tend to think of computers are fairly simple puzzles. Problems are easily fixed if you know what you're looking for. But what if you have no clue? They must seem like indecipherable black boxes. Things work or they don't, but they have no idea why. Of course, I face the same kind of challenge when staring at an automobile. We all have our blind spots I suppose.

Russian Prof. Predicts End of U.S.

I'm not kidding. Check it out.

Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar. Around the end of June 2010, or early July, he says, the U.S. will break into six pieces -- with Alaska reverting to Russian control.

And... you lost me. The Russians are seriously still that hung up over Alaska. Suck it up, you lost it fair and square.

In case you're interested, here's a map:

Three-Ring Circus...

There are many who find politics boring. I just don't get that. Every time I go to the grocery story and stand in line at the check out, I see racks of magazines about celebrities and their personal lives. I guess I just don't care if some actress is dating some other actor that much. I mean I guess it's good to know as a conversation piece but it doesn't really register with me as vital. But politics is probably crazier than any Hollywood love triangle and unlike the stories in the tabloids, usually has a direct impact on our lives.

Take this whole crazy situation in Illinois, you know, the home state of our new president-elect. The governor there is under investigation by the FBI for trying to sell Barack Obama's senate seat. He denies it of course but they have him on tape basically saying it. I can't wait to see how his lawyers spin that in court. So the Illinois state legislature threatens to impeach Gov. Blagojevich, and he calls their bluff and just goes ahead and appoints Ronald Burris to fill Obama's vacant seat, which until he's impeach is within his power to do so. But since he's being charged with corruption directly pretaining to said seat, well things get a little sticky.

Which brings us to today, the day where Burris just showed up in D.C. trying to get sworn in and was promptly rejected by the leadership in his own party. Now personally I don't like Burris that much. He's obviously an opportunist, who at one point in this crazy fiasco called for the governor's impeachment and argued against any appointment, that is until he himself became that appointment. Now he think's its God's will. *rolls eyes* All this is a stupid distraction during a time we should be focused on the economy, not on a single senate seat. But if Americans are anything these days, we are easily distracted.

Late Start...

Getting a late start to the day today. I think I am sick. Curses. I avoided it as long as I could throughout this uncharacteristically cold snap we're having here in Southern California, but I guess it has finally caught me. When I am sick, I sleep in, which means I started this day very late and that sadly means it's going to be one long ass day with my deadline looming tomorrow.

I was brought up in a home where if you weren't dying, you just manned up and pushed through it. In fact, I remember clearly that I didn't miss a day of school for anything. Both my parents worked so staying home wasn't really an option. I do recall one incident however that the school called my mom and told her I was too sick to stay at school.

So with that philosophy in mind, I will probably be staying late today to make sure all my tasks get done before the cutoff tomorrow.

Silver Screen...

So Win told me about a new movie that just came out called Defiance, about a band of Jews who resisted wholesale extermination by the Germans and fled into the woods of Poland. The trailer is below:



It's a story I never heard of before but the trailer grabbed my attention. I checked online, found the release date had already passed, and searched for the nearest theater. Sadly, it's only showing in LA. Damn I hate limited releases. Fortunately a DVD screener had already been released online. I watch the majority of my movies this way but for movies with promise, I prefer to go into the theater. The last movie I saw in the theater was the Dark Knight. Definitely needs to be viewed on the big screen.

Anyway, a few hours later I have to say, not a bad movie. Probably the best World War II movie I've seen in a while and I believe currently the 3rd one in theaters, albeit it is only marginally so. Definitely worth the time to watch it though like all trailers, it misleads you in the overall plot quite a bit. But maybe that's a good thing. There's little worse than giving away the entire story in a 30 second ad.

Overall, I give Defiance a 7 out of 10. But then again I'm partial to WWII, one of favorite periods of history. Check it out if you get the chance.

Perspective...

A friend sent me this link of 48 amazing examples of photo manipulation. Check it out, it'll be worth the effort. Here's a sample.

A Return to Science...

With T-minus 15 days until President-elect Obama is scheduled to take office, there has been a flood of how things are going to be different now articles. One addresses a problem near and dear to me, namely the frightening trend of American anti-intellectualism over the last decade or what Thomas Friedman calls the dumb as we want to be mentality, where ignorance and apathy are not only tolerated but indeed celebrated over knowledge and curiosity.

... under the Bush administration, the scientific community has been through some dark days, to say the least. And it hasn't been a simple case of diminishing funding, as is so often the issue in the realm of governmental research. No, Teich says, Obama's remarks at Chu's appointment spoke directly to the problem.

Not many people realize that this attitude has become so pervasive that a literal war on science has been raging in this country, where politics have overridden science for the last 8 years. Hopefully Chu's appointment is just the first in what will become many of counter-offensives in this battle.

2009...

Well today was the first day in a long while where I was forced to use my alarm clock, and believe me, it got snoozed at least a couple of times. Mondays are generally rough, but Mondays starting off the new year? Especially so. But it was a good and eventful break. I had a good New Years Eve, pictures coming as soon as I get my new memory card reader from Newegg. The Chargers won yesterday, continuing to defy expectations (yay!). The Lakers have the best record in the NBA (w00t!). I got through the book I've been working on and started the tenth and last book in Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series. And I got caught up on most of the shows in the queue except for True Blood and Dexter. Lots going on and planned for 2009, but alas I got a meeting in 5, so I shall continue this in a few. Happy New Years to all!