Author: blueZhift

Categories
SciFi and Fantasy

A New Hope At Last!

Well despite a lot of moaning and complaining over on Slashdot about the quality of the original version of Star Wars: A New Hope on the newly released limited edition, I went ahead and bought them anyway. I have the original trilogy on VHS, but I can’t even remember the last time I used the VCR and I have no plans to pull the thing out again either. So I finally have the originals (more or less) on DVDs that I got for $20USD per episode at Borders (less 10%, w00t!), which I consider to be a good deal. Yeah yeah, some people want everything absolutely perfect for $5/movie, but life is short and I was tired of waiting. So if the original trilogy is ever digitally remastered, then I’ll pick it up again. Ka-ching for George Lucas!

All of that said, this is a bit like a dream come true. I never got to see the original in theatres. I still remember being in line as a kid only to have the show sell out with just 5 or 6 more people in front of us. Later I’d watch it many times on HBO, but on a TV that had really wonky color. I even recorded it from the TV onto audio cassette tapes which also got quite a work out. So fast forward to now and widescreen edition DVDs with a boatload of extras and you’ve got one happy fanboy.

Categories
General politics

My 9/11 Footnote

I’m sure there are thousands of blog postings around the internet concerning the 5th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorists attacks. I remember the day as being one of great anger for me. I was angry because I’d just been laid off the Friday before 9/11. And as I watched the first tower collapse on TV, I was almost in a rage because I felt that the the stupid unilateralist policies of the Bush administration had set the stage for these horrific attacks. Five years later, I don’t really think the government’s policies or who the President was would have made any difference at all. The attacks were the result of hatred of the other, the not us. There’s no reasoning with hate, but returning the hatred doesn’t work either. It’s become a cliche, but we really do need to find a way to love our enemies. If war can’t conquer hate, then that only leaves love.

Categories
Tech

Eclipse Is Awesome!

The day began here overcast, cold, and rainy. It’s a dreadfully grey Monday, and my daughter missed her bus stop and ended up being late to school. But am I down? No Way! I’ve got a lot of work to do, but I am having a blast working on my projects in Eclipse because today things are just working the way they are supposed to. The icing on the cake is Subclipse, the Subversion plugin for Eclipse. Installation and setup where just flawless, perfect for the blah blah Monday I could be having. I am one happy geek right now!

Categories
SciFi and Fantasy

Star Trek at 40: It’s About the Biiiig Bucks!

Forty years ago today, Star Trek began airing on NBC. I grew up watching Star Trek in syndication. I learned the episodes by heart and much of my outlook on life was influenced by that show. So I always get a kick out of people poking fun at it, especially when the people doing it are William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy as they do in this hilarious interview with CNN. Yep, it’s about the biiig bucks!

Shatner and Nimoy on 40 years of Star Trek

Categories
General

Sharing The Womanly Arts

Growing up, I never imagined that someday I’d be teaching my son to sew or my daughter to make a dress. Sharing such traditionally womanly arts is not something that little boys are raised to do here. Nevertheless, I’ve really gotten hooked on sewing so I’m very excited to see the results of my daughter’s efforts. I got into it helping my son make his first Sonic the Hedgehog plushie and later making my first cosplay outfit. My daughter is now working on a long dress similar to the one Robin Senna wears in the anime series Witch Hunter Robin, but with red accents. But she isn’t doing it for cosplay but because she’s into goth, so I fully expect this dress to make an appearance at school in the future.

As my interest in sewing grew, WillowBrow told about A Dress A Day. This is Erin McKean’s cool dress oriented blog which I too am becoming enamored with. I had a chance to meet Erin a while back at a meeting of the Chicago chapter of the American Statistical Society and without gushing too much, she’s the kind of brainy and cute woman that we geeky University of Chicago types have always dreamed of! I’ll never look at the dictionary the same way again! /blush

Categories
politics

Being Evil != Being Secure

President Bush admitted today that the U.S. does have secret prisons around the world in which the CIA holds and interrogates suspected terrorists. He said that the interrogation is tough, but humane, safe, and legal. And he said that this must be done for the security of the U.S.. Well I say we’ve become the evil we were fighting against which means we’ve already lost the war on terror and taken our place besides the other great oppressive empires of history. We might as well drop the pretense of being the land of the free and the home of the brave. By surrendering the moral high ground, we’ve lowered ourselves to the level of those who would destroy us. Has Anakin been replaced by Darth? Did I just reference the bad Star Wars trilogy?

The bottom line is that being the good guys means that sometimes we have to suffer defeats and setbacks because it is evil to hold people indefinitely without charge. It is evil to torture people for information, even if you think it will save lives. And it is evil to invade other countries to install the government that you think they should have. All of this evil is not going to make America or the world any safer and so far that seems to be what we are seeing by and large.

Categories
SciFi and Fantasy

Battlestar Galactica Mini-Fix

Today Battlestar Galactica “webisodes” began on Sci Fi channel’s website. These short 4 minute snippets tell the story of the budding resistance on New Caprica in advance of the season 3 premiere on October 6. But Firefox users need not apply, the first webisode at least would only play in Internet Explorer on my Windows XP box. If you’re as hungry for the new season as I am, these little snacks should satisfy. I only wish I could download them to my PSP.

Oh strike that Firefox remark, after I ran it in IE, it worked in Firefox. I don’t know if this is a real browser issue, or if my box is just wonky.

Categories
General

Yay School!

School has started up again, and as the father of a middleschooler, I am officially old! The first day of school went without incident. I picked my daughter up at school and brought her back to my office where she got a chance to witness my mad skillz. My mad skillz of furious typing, calling people up, and a lot of mumble jumble about undelete utilities and recycling bins! LOL But it’s all cool. My dad did the same for me, so I guess this is a way of paying him back and saying thanks.

Categories
Game Development

XNA Game Studio Beta Launches Today

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 development tools aimed at indies, students, and hobbyists are in beta and available for download today! I can’t wait to see what I can do (or fail to do) with these tools. I’ll start with something goofy just to get my feet wet real fast.

XNA Game Studio Express

Categories
General

That Old Vulcan Magic

Yesterday I got some news that I really did not want to hear. Fortunately, I had already taken some steps in the right direction to solve the problem, nevertheless it was not welcome news. If a hurricane is coming, it’s great to be prepared, but it is still bad news that the hurricane is coming!

I remember when I was growing up being rather excitable. It didn’t take much to set me off, and it got me into a lot of trouble at times. In the end two things saved me, Spock and Jesus. An odd combination I’m sure, but for me it was essential. Christianity gave me a spiritual base, but it was Spock that gave me a practical model of self control that resonated with my inner core and still does. I don’t deny my emotions, but I have found that being able to act based on logic, sometimes in spite of how I feel, to be a useful skill. Being cool and logical can be fun too.

Categories
General

I’ve Been Pursed!

Some things just take a long time to recognize, carrying a man purse is just one of them. Few men go out looking to buy a man purse. Like me, they probably had a problem they were trying to solve. I had been carrying a laptop bag, but after a year discovered that the steel button on the inside of the bag had been wearing holes in my jeans. Not only that, it was too big for what I wanted to carry most of the time. I wanted something that was slim and sexy, just big enough for a few file folders and my usual support electronics. I ended up buying a Tumi bag at Marshall Fields for about $150. I’ve had the bag for almost two years and I love it! I don’t like spending a lot of money, but I will pay for quality, and this is a good bag. All was well in the world.

Now flashbask to spring 2006. I’m waiting in line to pick up my Anime Central passes in the Thursday night pre-reg pickup line. This is usually a long wait, so I’ve brought my bag and supporting goodies, my iPod, manga, and I’m reading Dream of the Red Chamber. After a while, two women in line behind me ask me about the book. And during our conversation, they notice my bag and refer to it as a man purse! Was I shocked? Not really, I was rather proud that the bag had drawn some attention, since it’s a really nice bag.

Back in the present, the issue 43 of Giant Robot has just come in the mail. There’s an article about Asian American Film Fests that includes humorous caricatures of the different types of people who attend these events. One of these features a film-maker wannabe who has a man purse. Then it all comes together and a quick Google search turns up the damning final evidence that I have indeed been pursed! Here are the links for your enjoyment.

The Man Purse

It’s Not A Purse

Man Purses: Hot or Not

As for me, I have no plans to stop carrying my bag. It’s useful and looks good, so if man purse it is, then so be it say I.

Categories
Anime, Manga, Etc Tech

East Asian Character Sets In iTunes For Windows

I have a lot of Japanese anime songs, JPop, JRock, and Canto Pop in my music collection. For a long time I’ve been annoyed by the fact that iTunes on my Windows XP box would only display the titles of Chinese and Japanese songs with those little boxes that mean it didn’t know wtf to do with it. After much googling to no avail and a fruitless search of the iTunes site, I stumbled upon the answer while installing a Japanese game. The game required the installation of support for East Asian character sets. Once I did this, the Japanese and Chinese song titles, etc., displayed correctly! Here is the procedure.

  1. Open the Start menu and click Control Panel
  2. In the Control Panel, switch to Classic View if you aren’t already in it. Then open Regional and Language Options.
  3. Click on the Languages tab and then click the empty check box next to Install files for East Asian languages.
  4. Click Apply. Now at this point or just after you click the check box, a message box will come up and tell you that installing the support will take about 230MB and you will also need to have your Windows XP installation CD handy.
  5. Just follow the installation instructions, and at the end of it all, you’re good to go!
Categories
Anime, Manga, Etc

Skinny Tuesday

Out on my walk today I noticed an overabundance of cute women in skirts with skinny legs. Given all of the news about how Americans are overweight, all of these skinny women just stood out that much more. Regardless of the reason, it was a nice sight to behold.

Another lovely sight is the release of Neon Genesis Evangelion: Angelic Days Volume 2. Evangelion is one of my favorite series, so much so that I bought a Japanese copy of volume 9 of the first manga series at the Mitsuwa marketplace. Knowing the story as presented in the anime helps, but I was pleasantly surprised at how much Japanese I’ve been able to pick up in my very haphazard studies. I’m looking forward to diving into Angelic Days later today. From what I’ve seen, the retelling of stories using the same characters or similar ones is common in manga and anime. The first time I saw this myself was in the three Tenchi series I’ve seen. And I’ve seen it in the herd of Gundam series I’ve watched as well. Angelic Days does the same with the Evangelion characters. Like enjoying the work of one’s favorite actors, I’m looking forward to seeing how the story unfolds with these familiar characters in a slightly different setting.

Categories
Anime, Manga, Etc cosplay

Deconstructed Monday

Since I started working on the first costume for my cosplay project, also my first major sewing project, I’ve been noticing women’s fashion with what I’ll call a deconstructed view. No longer is that skirt just nice, or that blouse oh so sexy. Instead I’m seeing front and back patterns, interfaces, and fused linings! OMG! It’s full of fusible web! I certainly have a new appreciation for the work that goes into designing and making clothes, especially women’s fashions. So thanks mom for all the work you did making clothes for me when I was little!

Categories
General

Super Smash Brothers Onigiri Melee

Today I discovered that my son also has the coveted onigiri hands of which I wrote previously. Together we fashioned 14 rice balls with a minimum of stickiness to our hands. The onigiri could not stand against our combined assault! It was a cool and super cute father son moment captured by my lady of the sticky palms in the bad cell phone pic below, if I bother to upload it that is! Next on the list of things to do is a rousing bout of Super Smash Brothers Melee!