Familiar names have been in the sporting news of late. The Don, Don Matthews. David Murphy. These are familiar names to me, although the names belong to other people than the newest head coach of the Toronto Argos and the Texas Rangers' outfielder.
For me, the Don is Don Benoit. And David Murphy is the goofy kid who played catcher for my earliest softball rep teams. They are part of the extended family I met through softball.
As a kid, I tended not to share many hobbies with my father or either of my brothers. As softball (fastpitch, really) was my sport of choice, I naturally hung around with the kids on the teams I was playing on. In my earliest years of playing ball, that meant hanging out with Randy Hargreaves and his younger brother Kirk. Their dad, Russell, was my coach and I spent a LOT of time over there. So much so, that Mr. Hargreaves figured I ate enough and often enough over there to have chores. Hard to believe now, with my disinclination towards physical labour, but I was considered a Hargreaves for ordering around purposes. When the Hargreaves moved out of town when I was ten, it took me awhile to recover.
I really didn't play all that well for other coaches after that. A second-baseman by trade, I was good enough to play on rep teams. But I was a nasty piece of business. I played more like Ty Cobb than Aaron Hill. They say of somebody who was overly competitive, "he'd try to trip his own mother rounding third base with the winning run." I never got the chance, but I would have. Trust me. I had particularly bad run-ins with the teams from Huttonville. And I got tossed from games for cursing those yellow-bellied sapsuckers. I have a legendary ability to carry a grudge.
Eventually, I found an outlet for my aggression by coaching. My pals, Jimmy Hughes and Glen McGonnigle, had coached in atom house league the year before I turned 14. They convinced me to take over the Longines Witnauer team in the atom league that season and I found out I liked coaching, even if the kids were only eight and nine. It was fun and we did occasionally win games. Not too many to scare the adults coaching the other teams. But enough to keep me coming back for more. It was that first season coaching that I met The Don, Don Benoit.
The Don was a force of nature. His real-life job was handling the scheduling of lakers, shipping boats plying the Great Lakes. This was in the days before computers. He could change skeds all in his head. As bright as many of the bridge players are that I have come across (and that includes double professorships), Don Benoit might have been the brightest guy I ever met. As I've gotten older, I gotta tell you, I have come to look a lot like him. He was always hanging around, slightly sloop-shouldered and stockily built. He was perpetually in a baseball jacket and dockers, with a few days growth of beard. His first words of advice to me were, "Son, remember that the kids are here to have fun first, second and third. Winning comes last." It took me awhile to find out how right he was.
One more thing before I put the subject of The Don behind me. The man had a great sense of humour. Hey, he let me babysit his kids, Joe, Darren and Mary! But the surest sign, was the sign on the front door of the house. "The Benoits, a Division of Molson's Breweries. Professional Drinkers since 1879" I might have the year wrong. Never saw the man drunk once in all the time I knew him, but he was plenty happy to let people have a chuckle at the expense of underestimating him.
The next year, I coached in atom again, with a lot more success. I was asked to help coach the the atom Selects, who played a handful of tournaments against other town select teams. It wasn't an organized rep league, just a series of tournaments. It was a lot of fun coaching with Ken Hills, who's boy Patrick, was probably the dominating pitcher in Ontario for the age group. That would largely continue to be the case until about Midget, where Patrick decided to concentrate more on hockey. Bramalea and Alderwood split most of the titles that year, Alderwood having their own big pitcher in the form of Ed Kastelic, who DID eventually make it to the NHL with the Whalers and the Capitals. The Alderwood team was coached by Bob Rose, like me, hailing from Newfoundland. For competitors, we became good friends. I also became quite close to the Hills family over the next three years.
I wasn't even 16 the next year when I got the phone call. Hugh Pitcher was offering me the head coaching spot with the Squirt Rep team. Actually, my name was the last one on the list, meaning if I said no, there would be no team. It didn't even have a sponsor. Also, there would be no Etobicoke Softball Association, since Eringate and Alderwood needed at least a third team to have an actual season. And they needed a league to be eligible for Ontario championship play. I was oblivious to this and full of piss and vinegar. "Of course," I said. Didn't give it a thought. Actually, I spent more thought on naming the team and coming up with a logo, a life-long hobby of mine. Thus were born the Bramalea Buckaroos.
Pitcher made LOTS of mistakes over his years as a softball exec, not the least of which was getting me to coach. But he hit a homer in finding me an assistant coach. Barry Murphy was a senior men's player of less than stellar ability. He hustled his way onto squads, saw lots of bench time and learned what worked and what didn't work when it came to softball. With son David exhibiting interest in his dad's game, it was time to start coaching. It helped that Betty Murphy, his wife, was one of those perfect coach's wives. She was enthusiastic, smart enough to cheer for everybody and smart enough to probably know more about the game than her husband, and keep that fact under wraps.
With me being still short of driving age, I was part of the baseball baggage the Murphys would haul to games. We ended up talking ball a lot. I more or less became David's older brother. As with my other visits into extended families, I wouldn't have traded that time for anything. The Murphys were, and still are, some of the best people ever.
We didn't win a lot initially. In fact, we only won one league game that first year, thanks to my friend Bob Rose at Alderwood. Although THEY were fighting tooth and nail with Eringate to win the league title, they voluntarily forfeited a game at Victoria Park against us. This was back in the days before the re-entry rule. Alderwood was thumping us but good, again. Bob had emptied the bench and had nary a reserve available. When his catcher, a top-notch player named Phillip, threw a temper trantrum after being called out, Rose benched him and forfeited the game. His kids were NOT going to misbehave without repercussions. As it turns out, Alderwood eventually won the league title anyway, but his kids always played with class.
I think the team was something like zero and 11 before we headed for Woodstock for a tournament. I was quite sure I was the worst coach of all time by then. Fortunately, for the first time all season, we didn't play either of our league mates (we'd even drawn them in two tournaments). When we finally got fresh meat, it turns out we were okay. In fact we won the consolation title at the event. By season's end, I would have put us in the top eight in the province. Not that that did us any good. We drew Owen Sound in the first round of the provincials, one of the few teams to give Alderwood a tussle. We lost. Alderwood won the Ontario title. As it should have.
From being a head coach, I turned to being an assistant coach. I was still a teenager, too young to drive, and I needed an adult to temper some of my more creative ideas. I had some doozies. I actually made a presentation to the softball association to have all tee-ball players hit left-handed. As I pointed out, they were too young to know differently and would swallow any coach's request to hit from the first-base side of the diamond. I envisioned a complete roster of left-handed hitting rep teams in a few years. Left-handers are two steps closer to first base in softball. And that makes a difference. But I was denied on the motion. Curses!
As an assistant coach, I got a chance to work with Dave Murphy, who was rounding into possibly the best catcher in the province. He loved throwing the ball and we worked out the limits to his pickoff attempts. The outfielders had to be in coverage and the runner had to be too far from the bag ... OR having turned his back to David. Some of the best plays I saw David make that year came when a runner was only a step off the bag. He'd turn his back and make the lazy step to the base and find the ball in the fielder's glove awaiting him. It was comical at times. The best part was involving the outfielders who knew David caught even OUR guy by surprise at times. Outfielders didn't sleep on our teams, making it less of a drudge out there.
I assisted on several teams during my late teens. I was obviously helping out with Barry and the squad that I'd coached the year before. John Fleming gave me a chance with the older kids, the bantams. Clinics I coached in, in the spring exposed me to the girls' game too. Some of those kids at the first clinics, like Connie Mitchell, later became the squad that represented Canada at the inaugural World Junior Championships in Edmonton in 1981. I also came across the coaching talent of Grandpa Bob Sorenson. Nothing Grandpa did looked dynamic. Everything he did worked though. He looked like he should have been in a rocking chair while still embarrassing senior men's teams with his baffling array of drops and curves. Most fun watching pitch that I have ever seen in the game. And that includes Eddie Feigner. And he was better as a coach.
Turning into my 20's, I was needing my extended softball family less and less. I was with Murphy and the peewees when my boys' coaching career came to an end. I enjoyed that team as much as any I had ever been involved with. Still, I had a problem with a pitcher on the team, who's dad was a long-time executive in the association. He'd behaved well until the day after we had our roster frozen for the rest of the year. At that point, the hidden away Damian surfaced and I found myself actually thinking about doing physical harm to a kid. I quit on the spot, handing over the coaching reins to Ted Menzies. I remember going to my car and getting some pictures of the kid in question out of the trunk. These were left-over extra black and whites our photographer at the Brampton Guardian newspaper (I was assistant sports editor) had printed up so I could give them to the kids. The particular kid in question was due to get two shots.
I tore them up into small pieces, tossed them into the garbage can and drove away.
Naturally, I ended up watching most of the team's remaining games. I sat out in centre-field and growled at anybody who came near. It was with great pleasure that I watched Barry and Ted guide the kids to the league title. I was finished coaching.
Well, not so fast. Although I proudly wore my 'Retired Coach' shirt all of the next year, I was as busy as I could be. Gerry Harvey got me to help him out with the bantam girls. I helped in the peewee house league with a boys' team. And the new president of the softball association, John Payne, asked me to work all the local tournaments. A fairly smooth-talking insurance salesman, John knew which buttons to push to get me announcing and helping officiate the several tournaments that the association ran each year. I had designed the model they used, which was a round-robin affair guaranteeing each team three games. Made us VERY, VERY popular, since most tournaments only guaranteed teams two games. Since this was my baby in a ways, John succeeded in inveigling me into helping out. He and his wife Evelyn became the last of the families to become part of my extended softball family. They even had a young daughter who became the last person in the world to succeed in getting me out on open water, when she pulled the big sorrowful eyes routine to con me into doing most of the legwork on a paddle-boat trip on the local lake.
Eventually, I had to give up my extended softball family. There was one last hurrah at the world championships, as I traveled with the team to Edmonton. I had coached or coached against more than half the team. Some of them, I had coached brothers of. One's brother was my best friend at the time. But when the last out was called in a quarter-final loss to Japan, I was on my way out the door. I was done with softball.
Seems I had developed pretty severe August grass allergies. Never have figured out why they call them August grasses. I start wheezing and popping pills no later than my birthday in mid July. I then pray for the first frost, economic consequences be damned. Not being able to breathe does have a negative effect on my desire to coach. So I stopped. Didn't even go back to watch. With the exception of announcing at a 1984 Olympic prep tournament, I haven't been back since.
I miss softball. I miss the people. But I had a chance to get to know some REAL good people, and for that I am thankful. They made an impact on my life. I hope I left them a little bit better off for it.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
SOFTWARE: Default Dumbness
This week's Chaos Manor Reviews over at Jerry Pournelle's site, talks a lot about the basic concept of installing Windows programs to the default locations. There's very little to recommend in the practice and lots to recommend NOT DOING IT.
I tried, and failed, to set my machine up correctly during the initial setting up of Nuklon. I knew the default install of Windows would take between 2 and 4 gigs of space. The pagefile file would be equal to my memory, so that was another 3 gigs. And temp directories would take another 4 gig chunk, about the size of a DVD. Thus, I needed 11 gigs. I upped it to 15 gigs just in case.
THEN, I installed all my programs and data on OTHER logical drives. D: ended up holding most of my data and F: held most of my programs. I simply did not install anything to C:, leaving it as pristine as could be. And yet, somehow, C: ended up running at near capacity because no matter WHERE you say to install to, most installation programs still leave detritus strewn all over the C: drive. And it's not just Microsoft that ignores your wishes. Firefox, the browser you SHOULD be using to read this, installs lots of itself on C:. And heaven forbid you try to change where it's email cousin Thuderbird resides.
When I DO eventually transition fron Nuklon to Popeye, I will be upping C:'s space to 50 gigs. That should buy me between 2 and 3 years of some peace in terms of not over-flowing C:
Some reasons why to NOT install programs on C:
Bluntly, the less you have on C:, the easier it is to backup. If it doesn't take anytime at all, you will backup more often. And C: is the most fragile of the drives on your system. It gets the most wear and tear. It has the boot sectors. And malevolent programs frequently screw up that partition. It is SO EASY to simply go back to the most recent backup you have and tell it to restore the C: drive, rather than fiddle around trying to recover files, programs and your life as you know it from a crashed C: drive. Trust me. It happened earlier in the year here, and I was 15 minutes from laughing in the face of disaster.
Also, the scum-sucking dregs of society that send out virii and trojans, often depend on your programs being exactly where they install by default. You can save a few bytes by assuming Microsoft Office is in the default area, if you are writing a macro virus for those programs. Oddly enough, that assumption is as good as a good anti-virus program in those cases. And we all know how many virii used the default Outlook address book in the default location over the years to spread their little bundle of no joy.
Separating data from programs means leaner, meaner backups. Meaner as in quicker. That's good. Also, if you have a family who shares, it's a lot easier to share the D:\Data folder than arrange for each other to get access to some Stygian level of folders in that MyDocuments catchall. Setting up your OWN sub-directory structure instead of trying to read the mind of whoever makes decisions on things like this at Microsoft, is a winner for quickly finding what you want to find. For example, I think I have a logical structure to my data folders and tried to convince my Dad to follow my rules. Not only did he ignore me, but he set up his music folders in a manner that would make a World War II Enigma Code Breaker sweat. But he can find any of his music whenever he wants. Works for him. And HE's the one using the computer.
As much as installers want to install stuff you don't want to know about in a location you don't approve of, at least installing into an APPS folder, like the one I have on Drive F:, means you have a reasonable chance of tracking down just what is installed on your computer. For me, the Borland Database Engine program was installed to F:\Apps\BDE, making the administrator program for that easy to find. On the other hand, I could have installed it to the default location, which puts it in: C:\Program Files\Borland\Common Files\BDE. Dontcha just love Microsoft's new-found penchant for putting spaces in folder names? Makes writing batch files way more interesting than it should. Regardless, as with data, install programs to a hierarchical system that makes sense to you. Don't assume Microsoft knows better.
It doesn't.
I tried, and failed, to set my machine up correctly during the initial setting up of Nuklon. I knew the default install of Windows would take between 2 and 4 gigs of space. The pagefile file would be equal to my memory, so that was another 3 gigs. And temp directories would take another 4 gig chunk, about the size of a DVD. Thus, I needed 11 gigs. I upped it to 15 gigs just in case.
THEN, I installed all my programs and data on OTHER logical drives. D: ended up holding most of my data and F: held most of my programs. I simply did not install anything to C:, leaving it as pristine as could be. And yet, somehow, C: ended up running at near capacity because no matter WHERE you say to install to, most installation programs still leave detritus strewn all over the C: drive. And it's not just Microsoft that ignores your wishes. Firefox, the browser you SHOULD be using to read this, installs lots of itself on C:. And heaven forbid you try to change where it's email cousin Thuderbird resides.
When I DO eventually transition fron Nuklon to Popeye, I will be upping C:'s space to 50 gigs. That should buy me between 2 and 3 years of some peace in terms of not over-flowing C:
Some reasons why to NOT install programs on C:
Bluntly, the less you have on C:, the easier it is to backup. If it doesn't take anytime at all, you will backup more often. And C: is the most fragile of the drives on your system. It gets the most wear and tear. It has the boot sectors. And malevolent programs frequently screw up that partition. It is SO EASY to simply go back to the most recent backup you have and tell it to restore the C: drive, rather than fiddle around trying to recover files, programs and your life as you know it from a crashed C: drive. Trust me. It happened earlier in the year here, and I was 15 minutes from laughing in the face of disaster.
Also, the scum-sucking dregs of society that send out virii and trojans, often depend on your programs being exactly where they install by default. You can save a few bytes by assuming Microsoft Office is in the default area, if you are writing a macro virus for those programs. Oddly enough, that assumption is as good as a good anti-virus program in those cases. And we all know how many virii used the default Outlook address book in the default location over the years to spread their little bundle of no joy.
Separating data from programs means leaner, meaner backups. Meaner as in quicker. That's good. Also, if you have a family who shares, it's a lot easier to share the D:\Data folder than arrange for each other to get access to some Stygian level of folders in that MyDocuments catchall. Setting up your OWN sub-directory structure instead of trying to read the mind of whoever makes decisions on things like this at Microsoft, is a winner for quickly finding what you want to find. For example, I think I have a logical structure to my data folders and tried to convince my Dad to follow my rules. Not only did he ignore me, but he set up his music folders in a manner that would make a World War II Enigma Code Breaker sweat. But he can find any of his music whenever he wants. Works for him. And HE's the one using the computer.
As much as installers want to install stuff you don't want to know about in a location you don't approve of, at least installing into an APPS folder, like the one I have on Drive F:, means you have a reasonable chance of tracking down just what is installed on your computer. For me, the Borland Database Engine program was installed to F:\Apps\BDE, making the administrator program for that easy to find. On the other hand, I could have installed it to the default location, which puts it in: C:\Program Files\Borland\Common Files\BDE. Dontcha just love Microsoft's new-found penchant for putting spaces in folder names? Makes writing batch files way more interesting than it should. Regardless, as with data, install programs to a hierarchical system that makes sense to you. Don't assume Microsoft knows better.
It doesn't.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
SOFTWARE: Firefox 3 OK, Just in Time for Update
I have been using Firefox 3.01 and I'm just starting to feel comfortable with enough to recommend its use. The timing could be better, since version 3.02 is supposed to be out two days from now. But this is where the time to review it showed up.
Firefox 3 IS faster and uses less resources than version 2.x. It has MOST of the add-in extensions of its predecessor and more ones that aren't and never will be available for the 2.x series. Let's walk through these add-ins and make sure you can fine tune your browsing experience for the maximum in security, ease and entertainment.
The full list and links are included below. I won't be talking about them all. But you can try them all out. The MORE you add, the slower startup in Firefox gets. Not horribly, but be aware that there IS a penalty in startup time to be paid for setting these up. I'll just go over the must-haves.
I honestly believe that everybody should be running NoScript. NoScript, which is updated several times a week, is the solution to being as secure with a web browser as you can get. You set Javascript to automatically run in your Firefox settings, then use NoScript to handle it on a case-by-case basis. It automatically shuts down any javascript! You then allow it on a case-by-case basis. There's a NoScript button on the status bar that you can click and see what sites want to run scripts on the web-site you are looking at. Surprisingly, you will almost ALWAYS find that google analytics and other sites are running on the one you are looking at. You can enable any particular site forever, or just for the session you are on (which is a good situation when just browsing new places). After allowing forever, you won't be required to do it again. This is the choice for your bank site and other 'trusted' places. How can you tell that you need to check NoScript? Well, if huge chunks of the page are missing, THAT's a good sign. Or it's your first visit. It SOUNDS like a lot of effort, but it isn't. And the little bit of effort is a small price to pay for the increased security.
Staying with the same theme, add AdblockPlus and Adblock Filterset. Dozens, if not hundreds, of annoying ads will disappear forever. And you can add individual ads that annoy you. You should also install NukeAnything Enhanced. You can then highlight text and elements on the page and use the right-click menu to make them go away. Perfect for some pre-printing editing.
After that, I think NoSquint is a requirement. What that add-in does is allow you to set the size of the page (and now the text separately) and REMEMBER your settings. I ALWAYS had problems with the type on Jerry Pournelle's Chaos Manner, for example. I could use the Ctrl-SCROLLWHEEL to resize the text, but had to do it every time. Now, NoSquint remembers the last setting at each site and I've got everything looking just right at my commonly visited sites.
I also like a minimal set of toolbars at the top of the screen to maximize the depth of the window I am looking at. Less scrolling is good scrolling. So I run the Classic Compact Options add-in, along with Tiny Menu. This reduces the menu down to ONE word, Menu, that I can click to see the whole old menu. I use the former add-in for fine-tuning the look of the standard default theme that I use. I then moved a LOT of toolbars to the top row where menu used to be and turned off the Navigation toolbar. The result looks something like this:
Once you know what buttons do what, the small buttons work just great. I don't need that big keyhole backwards button, the small back and forth arrows do me just fine. And in the meantime, I have easy access to as deep a browser window as I can arrange. By the way, download ToolbarButtons to give you one-button access to many Firefox functions. Before you do that, install PrintPreview, a sadly missing default feature.
Firefox has a great ability to remember passwords and such. I want something a little more involved, so I use InFormEnter. It lets me remember forms all right. But it also lets me remember bits of information to be entered in new forms I encounter. Such as my name, email and address. It will show a little blue arrow beside fields and I can click it and automatically fill in the information. Takes a LITTLE setup, but after that, you can save oodles and oodles of typing.
SaveFileTo does exactly that. I can right click on a picture and save it to a list of folders I have created. So, I can put baseball pix in BBALL, basketball pictures in HOOPS and funny pictures in LAUGH. Saves having to save the picture to your download folder (heaven forbid, it'd better NOT be your desktop) and then move them.
When you decide to download a file, PDFDownload and DownloadStatusBar are REAL good ideas. The former steps in when you click on a PDF file and offers to download it or to run your PDF viewer within Firefox. Starting up any PDF viewer is a slow pain in the butt. If you have any intentions of saving the PDF, this does it without the issue of looking at it within the browser. Tools for specific tasks. As for the DownloadStatusBar, it shrinks the old window-masking Download dialog box into the status bar area. You can browse and monitor no problem. Highly recommended.
The actual browsing experience is aided by a few things. I like ImageZoom a lot, even though FF3 has some built-in image handling. Image fit is a REAL good thing. I also need an on-line dictionary at times and DictionarySearch is my current choice. I also have a new text highlighter that actually remembers BETWEEN sessions. WiredMarker has some rough edges, including a sub-sub-menu where one shouldn't exist, but it works a charm. I also use StopAutoPlay to prevent videos and music from playing immediately upon loading a site. Some of that stuff is obnoxious. Some of it needs to await my arrival on the tab. Since I load as many as 75 at a time, that might be awhile. Yes, it adds another button click, but it's a small price for control.
Which brings me to the final section of must-haves. I long used All-In-One Sidebar, TabsOpenRelative and AgingTabs to handle my FF2 work. The sidebar was an easy to use, easily hidden and retrieved repository of bookmarks, add-ins, download info and places to stash more buttons in a vertical format. TabsOpenRelative let me click on links on pages and have the tabs open up immediately to the right of the tab I was on. And AgingTabs let me colour the current tab green and the others various shades of yellow depending on how long they had been open. Great stuff!
But AIO Sidebar doesn't work correctly in FF3. Specifically, middle clicking on a folder in the bookmark list does NOT open the tabs, which is only slightly less problematical than the default FF3 behaviour of right clicking on a bookmark folder AND THEN MOVING TO IT! Sort of gets in the way of my being able to right click a bunch of folders and have them loaded in proper order when I come back from reading the morning paper. So, I had to switch to TabMixPlus for FF3. And it won't work with TabsOpenRelative and has it's own tab colouring feature. So, out the other two went, although I keep them around to monitor updates. I would, in fact, immediately go back to the old arrangement if the three add-ins worked as they do in FF2.
TabMixPlus lets me arrange many, many aspects of how tabs are opened and created in FF3. It can be a little bewildering. One thing I DID discover, is that I have to middle click on the folders I wanted opened in the REVERSE order of how I want them open. It keeps 0pening new tabs to the immediate right of the current one, not appending to the right side. Ah well, it's a small price to be paid, one which I hope won't last forever.
There are other links listed below. Check them out. Some might be features I use that you will want to use too. At the very least, NoScript, Adblock and either TabMixPlus or TabsOpenRelative.
Firefox 3 IS faster and uses less resources than version 2.x. It has MOST of the add-in extensions of its predecessor and more ones that aren't and never will be available for the 2.x series. Let's walk through these add-ins and make sure you can fine tune your browsing experience for the maximum in security, ease and entertainment.
The full list and links are included below. I won't be talking about them all. But you can try them all out. The MORE you add, the slower startup in Firefox gets. Not horribly, but be aware that there IS a penalty in startup time to be paid for setting these up. I'll just go over the must-haves.
I honestly believe that everybody should be running NoScript. NoScript, which is updated several times a week, is the solution to being as secure with a web browser as you can get. You set Javascript to automatically run in your Firefox settings, then use NoScript to handle it on a case-by-case basis. It automatically shuts down any javascript! You then allow it on a case-by-case basis. There's a NoScript button on the status bar that you can click and see what sites want to run scripts on the web-site you are looking at. Surprisingly, you will almost ALWAYS find that google analytics and other sites are running on the one you are looking at. You can enable any particular site forever, or just for the session you are on (which is a good situation when just browsing new places). After allowing forever, you won't be required to do it again. This is the choice for your bank site and other 'trusted' places. How can you tell that you need to check NoScript? Well, if huge chunks of the page are missing, THAT's a good sign. Or it's your first visit. It SOUNDS like a lot of effort, but it isn't. And the little bit of effort is a small price to pay for the increased security.
Staying with the same theme, add AdblockPlus and Adblock Filterset. Dozens, if not hundreds, of annoying ads will disappear forever. And you can add individual ads that annoy you. You should also install NukeAnything Enhanced. You can then highlight text and elements on the page and use the right-click menu to make them go away. Perfect for some pre-printing editing.
After that, I think NoSquint is a requirement. What that add-in does is allow you to set the size of the page (and now the text separately) and REMEMBER your settings. I ALWAYS had problems with the type on Jerry Pournelle's Chaos Manner, for example. I could use the Ctrl-SCROLLWHEEL to resize the text, but had to do it every time. Now, NoSquint remembers the last setting at each site and I've got everything looking just right at my commonly visited sites.
I also like a minimal set of toolbars at the top of the screen to maximize the depth of the window I am looking at. Less scrolling is good scrolling. So I run the Classic Compact Options add-in, along with Tiny Menu. This reduces the menu down to ONE word, Menu, that I can click to see the whole old menu. I use the former add-in for fine-tuning the look of the standard default theme that I use. I then moved a LOT of toolbars to the top row where menu used to be and turned off the Navigation toolbar. The result looks something like this:
Once you know what buttons do what, the small buttons work just great. I don't need that big keyhole backwards button, the small back and forth arrows do me just fine. And in the meantime, I have easy access to as deep a browser window as I can arrange. By the way, download ToolbarButtons to give you one-button access to many Firefox functions. Before you do that, install PrintPreview, a sadly missing default feature.Firefox has a great ability to remember passwords and such. I want something a little more involved, so I use InFormEnter. It lets me remember forms all right. But it also lets me remember bits of information to be entered in new forms I encounter. Such as my name, email and address. It will show a little blue arrow beside fields and I can click it and automatically fill in the information. Takes a LITTLE setup, but after that, you can save oodles and oodles of typing.
SaveFileTo does exactly that. I can right click on a picture and save it to a list of folders I have created. So, I can put baseball pix in BBALL, basketball pictures in HOOPS and funny pictures in LAUGH. Saves having to save the picture to your download folder (heaven forbid, it'd better NOT be your desktop) and then move them.
When you decide to download a file, PDFDownload and DownloadStatusBar are REAL good ideas. The former steps in when you click on a PDF file and offers to download it or to run your PDF viewer within Firefox. Starting up any PDF viewer is a slow pain in the butt. If you have any intentions of saving the PDF, this does it without the issue of looking at it within the browser. Tools for specific tasks. As for the DownloadStatusBar, it shrinks the old window-masking Download dialog box into the status bar area. You can browse and monitor no problem. Highly recommended.
The actual browsing experience is aided by a few things. I like ImageZoom a lot, even though FF3 has some built-in image handling. Image fit is a REAL good thing. I also need an on-line dictionary at times and DictionarySearch is my current choice. I also have a new text highlighter that actually remembers BETWEEN sessions. WiredMarker has some rough edges, including a sub-sub-menu where one shouldn't exist, but it works a charm. I also use StopAutoPlay to prevent videos and music from playing immediately upon loading a site. Some of that stuff is obnoxious. Some of it needs to await my arrival on the tab. Since I load as many as 75 at a time, that might be awhile. Yes, it adds another button click, but it's a small price for control.
Which brings me to the final section of must-haves. I long used All-In-One Sidebar, TabsOpenRelative and AgingTabs to handle my FF2 work. The sidebar was an easy to use, easily hidden and retrieved repository of bookmarks, add-ins, download info and places to stash more buttons in a vertical format. TabsOpenRelative let me click on links on pages and have the tabs open up immediately to the right of the tab I was on. And AgingTabs let me colour the current tab green and the others various shades of yellow depending on how long they had been open. Great stuff!
But AIO Sidebar doesn't work correctly in FF3. Specifically, middle clicking on a folder in the bookmark list does NOT open the tabs, which is only slightly less problematical than the default FF3 behaviour of right clicking on a bookmark folder AND THEN MOVING TO IT! Sort of gets in the way of my being able to right click a bunch of folders and have them loaded in proper order when I come back from reading the morning paper. So, I had to switch to TabMixPlus for FF3. And it won't work with TabsOpenRelative and has it's own tab colouring feature. So, out the other two went, although I keep them around to monitor updates. I would, in fact, immediately go back to the old arrangement if the three add-ins worked as they do in FF2.
TabMixPlus lets me arrange many, many aspects of how tabs are opened and created in FF3. It can be a little bewildering. One thing I DID discover, is that I have to middle click on the folders I wanted opened in the REVERSE order of how I want them open. It keeps 0pening new tabs to the immediate right of the current one, not appending to the right side. Ah well, it's a small price to be paid, one which I hope won't last forever.
There are other links listed below. Check them out. Some might be features I use that you will want to use too. At the very least, NoScript, Adblock and either TabMixPlus or TabsOpenRelative.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
TV: Endings Without Endings
There was a day in time back in the pre-TV era when there were such things as Serials. Each ended with a cliff-hanger and movie goers were urged to come back next week and see just what was going to happen to Flash Gordon as he attempts to prevent Ming the Merciless from Conquering the Universe.
There were others, but Flash Gordon seemed to be the king of serials. You'd go to the movie theatre to catch this week's flick and would be treated to an episode from the long-running series at the same time. A couple of weeks later, a new episode of the serial would be out, to run with the same movie or a new one, if the old movie wasn't a hit. There was a certain amount of follow-through on the cliff-hangers, as audience-goers would expect a quick resolution to whatever mess Flash had gotten himself into.
The time for serials passed about the time of World War II, when the slots alotted for the serials were taken up by film from the war front. The subsequent advent of TV made their disappearance a long-term thing. Until Dallas came along with the Who Shot J.R.? season-ending cliff-hanger in the 80's. It lead to a whopping audience rating for the first episode the next season. And ever since, in every increasing numbers, TV producers have condoned the practice of ending on a cliff-hanger.
I hate every one who participates in this.
It's even snuck over into the book publishing world, where you can't possibly assume the book you are reading has an ending. I read mostly science fiction, and non-endings have become derigeur in series SF. I've mentioned my disgust with the ending to Weapons of Choice by John Birmingham, when it stopped rather than ended. It was only THEN that I found out it was the first volume in a series. Same thing happened with one of the Star Trek books I bought. I DID buy the conclusion to that duology, but haven't bought a single Star Trek book since then. Something about once burnt.
Subsequently, I will buy series complete, before starting on the first book, trusting book reviewers to keep me from mistakes. Such as the one I made with Samurai Girl, where a decent first book was followed up by bad, badder and worst.
Getting back to TV, I had occasion to watch a couple of BBC six-episode series over the last fortnight. The first was a 10-year old new take on vampires called Ultraviolet. In six episodes, that show developed an interesting universe, populated it with interesting (but flawed) people, and drew the story to a conclusion. All the while, allowing for a second season that never came. A story with a beginning, a middle and an end. Delightful.
Ten years newer, the recent series Spooks Code 9, kicks off with an interesting premise, fumbles it for two shows and finally pulls together a good group of episodes to end the series' first season. It had better be the first of at least two seasons, because the ending is a cliff-hanger. There are unresolved questions and I don't think the reviews or the ratings for the show make it any lead-pipe cinch the show is coming back. And this new attitude on the part of series creators to push for audience demand for more, is self-serving at best, riot-inducing at worst.
Let me get back to Ultraviolet for a second. Vampires were a lot less prevalent then, then are now. The take on vampires in the show was fresh. The gimmicks to fight the vampires had a good retro futuristic vibe. No Buffy-esque everybody knows karate conceit. Just guns with cameras to help determine which people in front of you did NOT show up on electronics. The individual episodes were solid and the overall arc mystery resolved in proper smart manner. And the show featured Colette Brown in a supporting role. Which was a very good thing.
If this one does hit the DVD store or gets replayed on one of the BBC export channels, catch it.
Spooks Code 9 is an outgrowth of the venerable old Spooks franchise in England. Spooks, called MI-5 over here, has put out five outstanding series. But I guess a now-famous cast has gotten too expensive and the creators decided to do a Next Generation of sorts. And they got an interesting premise to start it off. What if terrorists exploded a nuke in London during the 2012 Olympics? Surely, most of the intelligence network would be in town, as would be most of the nation's bigwigs.
The Bomb changes everything. Lopping off the head of the security services means the service has to be rebuilt, mostly with people on the tenth page of the manual teaching the beginners on page one. It's actually a pretty neat idea.
But the result just doesn't work initially. The gang that's assembled are so green that the creators decided to admit it by naming the new head of section Charlie Green. They are all in the twenties and range from convicted felon to a survivor of the bombing who has a death sentence from radiation poisoning and a desire to make her relatively short remaining life mean something. Getting the only existing veteran spook out of the way so the kiddies takes over, is accomplished with a lot of quick cuts through quite a distopian world.
And that's where it almost lost me. I just can't see Britain falling apart like that. Afterall, this is a country that withstood the Nazi barrage. Stiff upper lip and all that. And would the world really stand by and let England fall apart like that?
Okay, assuming the distopia happens. The police state seems pretty well ineffectual. Most distopia's have REAL good police forces. They sort of go hand in hand. For three episodes we generally see that ISN'T the case in Code 9. Then, the show rights itself and does standalone episodes that work well, while furthering the overarching mystery of who the MI-5 traitor is that set up the actual bomb attack. The traitor is revealed with minutes to go in the series' sixth episode and the second bomb found with a minute to go. Another mystery is developed over who the guru is that turned the traitor.
And then the show ends.
No resolution to whether the bomb was stopped. No future details as to the manipulating mastermind in the background. No knowledge of whether Rachel survives and Charlie gets it through his thick mathmatician's head that she loves him. AAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!!
Of course, if the series never returns, we DO have an ending of sorts. The bomb went off and everything was obliterated.
Maybe they'll eventually do Spooks Code 9: The Next Generation.
There were others, but Flash Gordon seemed to be the king of serials. You'd go to the movie theatre to catch this week's flick and would be treated to an episode from the long-running series at the same time. A couple of weeks later, a new episode of the serial would be out, to run with the same movie or a new one, if the old movie wasn't a hit. There was a certain amount of follow-through on the cliff-hangers, as audience-goers would expect a quick resolution to whatever mess Flash had gotten himself into.
The time for serials passed about the time of World War II, when the slots alotted for the serials were taken up by film from the war front. The subsequent advent of TV made their disappearance a long-term thing. Until Dallas came along with the Who Shot J.R.? season-ending cliff-hanger in the 80's. It lead to a whopping audience rating for the first episode the next season. And ever since, in every increasing numbers, TV producers have condoned the practice of ending on a cliff-hanger.
I hate every one who participates in this.
It's even snuck over into the book publishing world, where you can't possibly assume the book you are reading has an ending. I read mostly science fiction, and non-endings have become derigeur in series SF. I've mentioned my disgust with the ending to Weapons of Choice by John Birmingham, when it stopped rather than ended. It was only THEN that I found out it was the first volume in a series. Same thing happened with one of the Star Trek books I bought. I DID buy the conclusion to that duology, but haven't bought a single Star Trek book since then. Something about once burnt.
Subsequently, I will buy series complete, before starting on the first book, trusting book reviewers to keep me from mistakes. Such as the one I made with Samurai Girl, where a decent first book was followed up by bad, badder and worst.
Getting back to TV, I had occasion to watch a couple of BBC six-episode series over the last fortnight. The first was a 10-year old new take on vampires called Ultraviolet. In six episodes, that show developed an interesting universe, populated it with interesting (but flawed) people, and drew the story to a conclusion. All the while, allowing for a second season that never came. A story with a beginning, a middle and an end. Delightful.
Ten years newer, the recent series Spooks Code 9, kicks off with an interesting premise, fumbles it for two shows and finally pulls together a good group of episodes to end the series' first season. It had better be the first of at least two seasons, because the ending is a cliff-hanger. There are unresolved questions and I don't think the reviews or the ratings for the show make it any lead-pipe cinch the show is coming back. And this new attitude on the part of series creators to push for audience demand for more, is self-serving at best, riot-inducing at worst.
Let me get back to Ultraviolet for a second. Vampires were a lot less prevalent then, then are now. The take on vampires in the show was fresh. The gimmicks to fight the vampires had a good retro futuristic vibe. No Buffy-esque everybody knows karate conceit. Just guns with cameras to help determine which people in front of you did NOT show up on electronics. The individual episodes were solid and the overall arc mystery resolved in proper smart manner. And the show featured Colette Brown in a supporting role. Which was a very good thing.
If this one does hit the DVD store or gets replayed on one of the BBC export channels, catch it.
Spooks Code 9 is an outgrowth of the venerable old Spooks franchise in England. Spooks, called MI-5 over here, has put out five outstanding series. But I guess a now-famous cast has gotten too expensive and the creators decided to do a Next Generation of sorts. And they got an interesting premise to start it off. What if terrorists exploded a nuke in London during the 2012 Olympics? Surely, most of the intelligence network would be in town, as would be most of the nation's bigwigs.
The Bomb changes everything. Lopping off the head of the security services means the service has to be rebuilt, mostly with people on the tenth page of the manual teaching the beginners on page one. It's actually a pretty neat idea.
But the result just doesn't work initially. The gang that's assembled are so green that the creators decided to admit it by naming the new head of section Charlie Green. They are all in the twenties and range from convicted felon to a survivor of the bombing who has a death sentence from radiation poisoning and a desire to make her relatively short remaining life mean something. Getting the only existing veteran spook out of the way so the kiddies takes over, is accomplished with a lot of quick cuts through quite a distopian world.
And that's where it almost lost me. I just can't see Britain falling apart like that. Afterall, this is a country that withstood the Nazi barrage. Stiff upper lip and all that. And would the world really stand by and let England fall apart like that?
Okay, assuming the distopia happens. The police state seems pretty well ineffectual. Most distopia's have REAL good police forces. They sort of go hand in hand. For three episodes we generally see that ISN'T the case in Code 9. Then, the show rights itself and does standalone episodes that work well, while furthering the overarching mystery of who the MI-5 traitor is that set up the actual bomb attack. The traitor is revealed with minutes to go in the series' sixth episode and the second bomb found with a minute to go. Another mystery is developed over who the guru is that turned the traitor.
And then the show ends.
No resolution to whether the bomb was stopped. No future details as to the manipulating mastermind in the background. No knowledge of whether Rachel survives and Charlie gets it through his thick mathmatician's head that she loves him. AAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!!
Of course, if the series never returns, we DO have an ending of sorts. The bomb went off and everything was obliterated.
Maybe they'll eventually do Spooks Code 9: The Next Generation.
Friday, September 19, 2008
SPORTS: It All Started with Arland Bruce III -- Spidey!
I hate grandstanding idiots at football games, and no, I'm not talking about the clowns who get all liquored up and do a runaround until tackled by policeman. No, I'm talking about self-aggrandizing idiots on football teams. Most of them are receivers. They scheme and pray for a chance to do something post-touchdown that will end up with their mug splashed all over the sports show nightly highlights. They put themselves above their teammates in doing this, although inevitably these days, they have help in showing how big of an idiot they are.
The Toronto Argonauts are not having a good season. But it was an okay season right up until a moment in the team's last win--over similarly woeful Hamilton--when Arland Bruce III, an oft-forgotten superstar receiver this year, needed some attention real bad. He scored a touchdown, then went into a huddle near the endzone wall, from which he emerged wearing a Spiderman mask. Leaving aside the trademark infringement, it was a classless act from a player I'd thought pretty classy up until this Terrell Owens'-level act of narcissism.
And please spare me the attempts to legitimize this and acts like it, as increased entertainment. Football is a team sport. Possibly the ultimate team sport. For one player to act like the cock of the walk while the guys who protected the guy who got him the ball walk to the sideline in relatively poor-paid anonymity, is vanity run amok.
Apparently, the act has divided the team. Half the team suffers the fool for being sublimely talented, the other half, the real old pros, hope he breaks his head real soon. It's embarassing to see a teammate carry on like he'd never scored a touchdown before. Since that time, the Argos have played like a team divided, costing several people their jobs and embarassing the whole city, no less the team. Openly, it was discussed if the Argos would benefit just cutting Bruce from the team, assuming no self-respecting CFL side would want to trade for arguably one of the three best receivers in the league. Bruce remains. That's sad.
Of course, Bruce is just mimicking the nauseating behaviour of the enfants terrible from the NFL. Chad Ochocinco or whatever name he's chosen for the spotlight has helped the once-promising Cincinatti Bengals plunge to the nether regions of the league. My solution to that issue would have been to issue the former Chad Johnson sweater 13 when he showed up for work this fall. And the newest idiot in the receiver set, DeSean Jackson of the Philadelphia Eagles, has proven he has an IQ roughly equivalent to his sweater number. Showing off by throwing away the ball on an apparent long touchdown, replays showed he pulled the stunt BEFORE crossing the goal-line. And this ignaramous has actually done this BEFORE. So, it's not like he's going to learn from doing it this time. Scorn just olls of this dummy's back, never stopping to stick between the ears.
This is the universe Terrell Owens has wrought. Hope he rots in hell when he inevitably goes.
The Toronto Argonauts are not having a good season. But it was an okay season right up until a moment in the team's last win--over similarly woeful Hamilton--when Arland Bruce III, an oft-forgotten superstar receiver this year, needed some attention real bad. He scored a touchdown, then went into a huddle near the endzone wall, from which he emerged wearing a Spiderman mask. Leaving aside the trademark infringement, it was a classless act from a player I'd thought pretty classy up until this Terrell Owens'-level act of narcissism.
And please spare me the attempts to legitimize this and acts like it, as increased entertainment. Football is a team sport. Possibly the ultimate team sport. For one player to act like the cock of the walk while the guys who protected the guy who got him the ball walk to the sideline in relatively poor-paid anonymity, is vanity run amok.
Apparently, the act has divided the team. Half the team suffers the fool for being sublimely talented, the other half, the real old pros, hope he breaks his head real soon. It's embarassing to see a teammate carry on like he'd never scored a touchdown before. Since that time, the Argos have played like a team divided, costing several people their jobs and embarassing the whole city, no less the team. Openly, it was discussed if the Argos would benefit just cutting Bruce from the team, assuming no self-respecting CFL side would want to trade for arguably one of the three best receivers in the league. Bruce remains. That's sad.
Of course, Bruce is just mimicking the nauseating behaviour of the enfants terrible from the NFL. Chad Ochocinco or whatever name he's chosen for the spotlight has helped the once-promising Cincinatti Bengals plunge to the nether regions of the league. My solution to that issue would have been to issue the former Chad Johnson sweater 13 when he showed up for work this fall. And the newest idiot in the receiver set, DeSean Jackson of the Philadelphia Eagles, has proven he has an IQ roughly equivalent to his sweater number. Showing off by throwing away the ball on an apparent long touchdown, replays showed he pulled the stunt BEFORE crossing the goal-line. And this ignaramous has actually done this BEFORE. So, it's not like he's going to learn from doing it this time. Scorn just olls of this dummy's back, never stopping to stick between the ears.
This is the universe Terrell Owens has wrought. Hope he rots in hell when he inevitably goes.
HARDWARE: Description's The Same, Otherwise ...
In the midst of all the hullabaloo of replacing Nuklon with Popeye, I also have now used my new Logitech Cordless Optical Trackman long enough that I will use it long-term. I won't be combing the back lists of eBay for another Microsoft Trackball to replace the one that went belly-up just before the great computer fooferaw from early this week.
That's not to say I'm completely pleased with the Logitech. The first itch is the 'wireless' aspect of the trackball. I understand the need for this with mice, but the trackball stays right where it is most of the time. If a cable was hanging off the front end and weaved through the nest of similar cables occupying the space between my keyboard and the back of the computer, I doubt I would even sense the cable moving when I made slight adjustments to the Trackman's positioning. It adds cost and flakiness, since the reception seems to halt every now and then. Might be the batteries in the box are near their end, but it's an unneeded costly feature for the product.
The scroll wheel placement is a REALLY, REALLY FAT man's finger width away from the big marble that you maniuplate with your fingers. As such, it's almost TOO far away to be used comfortably. Check that. It IS too far away for comfortable use. I REALLY liked the old MS Trackball Explorer because I used the fingers to move and used the thumb to depress the left and right click buttons and the scroll wheel in-between them. The ONLY issue was the occasional scroll and click (probably the first sign the thing was dying).
The Logitech Trackman has more buttons (and what gadget-lover doesn't love MORE of anything?). They are generally kind of useful. The left button is well-placed and the bifurcated button above it has a smaller thumb-top button that I have made the middle-click button that works well. I'd like the lower thumb-pad section of the button to be my right-click button, but I don't have that choice. That's not horrible, because the pinkie-placed right click button is easy to get to and hold down when right-dragging stuff.
When you DO use the scroll wheel, it moves easily, clicks easily and there are buttons atop and below the scroll wheel that you can set for automated scrolling. AND there's a little lock that serves as an aid for when you want to move groups a LONG way on the screen and don't want to accidentally drop the group somewhere along the way. Quite neat.
This trackball device is certainly useable. It's got some heft, although it ways less than my original NON-wireless Logitech Trackman and considerably less than the doorstop that was the Microsoft Trackball. Still, it feels comfortable. And given that the only other legitimate scroll-wheel enabled trackballs out there were the featherweight Logitech Trackman Wheels (of which I have three), it's the best deal out there.
But shop around. Indeed I did get Staples to match the Tiger Direct price, which was 19 bucks less, before tax. Judge whether that means I have a good guy running the local Staples or that Staples makes so much money on the product, that they could still sell it to me for 25 per cent off without blinking an eye.
I honestly don't know which.
That's not to say I'm completely pleased with the Logitech. The first itch is the 'wireless' aspect of the trackball. I understand the need for this with mice, but the trackball stays right where it is most of the time. If a cable was hanging off the front end and weaved through the nest of similar cables occupying the space between my keyboard and the back of the computer, I doubt I would even sense the cable moving when I made slight adjustments to the Trackman's positioning. It adds cost and flakiness, since the reception seems to halt every now and then. Might be the batteries in the box are near their end, but it's an unneeded costly feature for the product.
The scroll wheel placement is a REALLY, REALLY FAT man's finger width away from the big marble that you maniuplate with your fingers. As such, it's almost TOO far away to be used comfortably. Check that. It IS too far away for comfortable use. I REALLY liked the old MS Trackball Explorer because I used the fingers to move and used the thumb to depress the left and right click buttons and the scroll wheel in-between them. The ONLY issue was the occasional scroll and click (probably the first sign the thing was dying).
The Logitech Trackman has more buttons (and what gadget-lover doesn't love MORE of anything?). They are generally kind of useful. The left button is well-placed and the bifurcated button above it has a smaller thumb-top button that I have made the middle-click button that works well. I'd like the lower thumb-pad section of the button to be my right-click button, but I don't have that choice. That's not horrible, because the pinkie-placed right click button is easy to get to and hold down when right-dragging stuff.
When you DO use the scroll wheel, it moves easily, clicks easily and there are buttons atop and below the scroll wheel that you can set for automated scrolling. AND there's a little lock that serves as an aid for when you want to move groups a LONG way on the screen and don't want to accidentally drop the group somewhere along the way. Quite neat.
This trackball device is certainly useable. It's got some heft, although it ways less than my original NON-wireless Logitech Trackman and considerably less than the doorstop that was the Microsoft Trackball. Still, it feels comfortable. And given that the only other legitimate scroll-wheel enabled trackballs out there were the featherweight Logitech Trackman Wheels (of which I have three), it's the best deal out there.
But shop around. Indeed I did get Staples to match the Tiger Direct price, which was 19 bucks less, before tax. Judge whether that means I have a good guy running the local Staples or that Staples makes so much money on the product, that they could still sell it to me for 25 per cent off without blinking an eye.
I honestly don't know which.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
TV: Samurai Girl Writers Are Miracle Workers
I knew I shouldn't have watched it. I'd read the novels that comprise most of Carrie Asai's Samurai Girl series and had hated every word of every book after the first one. The original opening volume was a fairly well-crafted story, allegedly aimed at teen girls with an interest in action, combined with some wistful unrequited love.
An earlier post here describes how the books went off the rails, leading me to stop with the fourth book still 20 pages or so from completion. I didn't even touch the fifth and sixth books. That's how mad I was for the author screwing up the good start.
Along the way, I WAS aware that the series had been optioned as a TV mini-series. The good news was that the TV shows were going to be based mainly around the first book. It was a hopeful thought. But really, could they salvage Asai's material?
The answer, much to my shock and chagrin, is a resounding YES!
If you told me that the creators of the TV show randomly picked four chapters out of the first book, say 1, 2, 13 and 25, and then discarded EVERYTHING ELSE, I would now believe you. So very little of the original vision remains, that this mini-series, shown in three back-to-back two-hour episodes, might very well have eschewed the title as well. In a way, I am glad they didn't, since the series DOES in fact star a girl, who is MUCH more of a mystical Samurai, then does the book version which concentrates so much on training and straining in the love area.
Kudos to Leslie Morgenstein, Bob Levy and Luke McMullen for creating this tiny little refashioned pearl.
Now, let's also admit that this isn't Emmy-winning material. There are some plot holes and some groaners. But generally, every step McMullen, Levy et al took away from the source material was a move in a positive direction. The story still boils down to a modern-day pampered Japanese teenager (bordering on adult hood), leaping out of an arranged marriage during a ninja attack and subsequently finding out her adoptive father is NOT a good guy. She gets help from an American-based sensei (the lust object) and moves along the path of becoming a modern day Samurai, as has been foretold for many, many years. Along the way, she battles the bad guys (Daddy, ninjas, Yakuza and her sensei's ex-girlfriend) and forms a bond with her bunch of Scoobies. Entertaining throughout.
Jamie Chung is a very pleasing Heaven Kogo. Although I believe she is of Chinese extraction, which might tick Japanese off, I bought her in the role. She had a sense of naivite and enthusiasm, that when mixed later with confidence and a sense of purpose, made you cheer her on. The Heaven of the books basically became a stupid whiner that you sort of hoped would actually get knocked off by the ninja armies she battled.
Brendan Fehr is certainly NOT occidental. His character IS Japanese in the book, but the one-time Roswell co-star had no problem playing the enigmatic, mostly uncommunicative sensei on TV. His was the most known face in the show and I had no complaints.
The Scoobies in the show, Saige Thompson's Cheryl and Kyle Labine's Otto, appear in the book, but are nothing like they are in the books, past the original meet cute. Labine scores extra points for being a Canuck. The Kogo family, most of whom looked a little young to have an almost adult daughter, generally did their part. Anthony Brandon did a good job at getting over the obsessiveness of Chairman Kogo.
Karen, the traitorous ex-girlfriend of Fehr's character, was never going to be an appealing role. In the book, she's a pathetic little jealous creature, beholding to Heaven for her life and willing all the same to sell her out. The TV version of Karen was played by Stacey Keibler, the ex-WWE pretty face. Her obvious bad girl vibe goes uncovered for way too long, the biggest blemish on the show's logic. The girl fight to finish off the last show wasn't exactly Jackie Chan-esque, but it was good enough.
This is a DVD I want when it comes out. The show might be worth re-watching and the kids will like it. But mostly, I want to hear the extra director and writer commentary tracks. Those will be worth the purchase price alone.
An earlier post here describes how the books went off the rails, leading me to stop with the fourth book still 20 pages or so from completion. I didn't even touch the fifth and sixth books. That's how mad I was for the author screwing up the good start.
Along the way, I WAS aware that the series had been optioned as a TV mini-series. The good news was that the TV shows were going to be based mainly around the first book. It was a hopeful thought. But really, could they salvage Asai's material?
The answer, much to my shock and chagrin, is a resounding YES!
If you told me that the creators of the TV show randomly picked four chapters out of the first book, say 1, 2, 13 and 25, and then discarded EVERYTHING ELSE, I would now believe you. So very little of the original vision remains, that this mini-series, shown in three back-to-back two-hour episodes, might very well have eschewed the title as well. In a way, I am glad they didn't, since the series DOES in fact star a girl, who is MUCH more of a mystical Samurai, then does the book version which concentrates so much on training and straining in the love area.
Kudos to Leslie Morgenstein, Bob Levy and Luke McMullen for creating this tiny little refashioned pearl.
Now, let's also admit that this isn't Emmy-winning material. There are some plot holes and some groaners. But generally, every step McMullen, Levy et al took away from the source material was a move in a positive direction. The story still boils down to a modern-day pampered Japanese teenager (bordering on adult hood), leaping out of an arranged marriage during a ninja attack and subsequently finding out her adoptive father is NOT a good guy. She gets help from an American-based sensei (the lust object) and moves along the path of becoming a modern day Samurai, as has been foretold for many, many years. Along the way, she battles the bad guys (Daddy, ninjas, Yakuza and her sensei's ex-girlfriend) and forms a bond with her bunch of Scoobies. Entertaining throughout.
Jamie Chung is a very pleasing Heaven Kogo. Although I believe she is of Chinese extraction, which might tick Japanese off, I bought her in the role. She had a sense of naivite and enthusiasm, that when mixed later with confidence and a sense of purpose, made you cheer her on. The Heaven of the books basically became a stupid whiner that you sort of hoped would actually get knocked off by the ninja armies she battled.
Brendan Fehr is certainly NOT occidental. His character IS Japanese in the book, but the one-time Roswell co-star had no problem playing the enigmatic, mostly uncommunicative sensei on TV. His was the most known face in the show and I had no complaints.
The Scoobies in the show, Saige Thompson's Cheryl and Kyle Labine's Otto, appear in the book, but are nothing like they are in the books, past the original meet cute. Labine scores extra points for being a Canuck. The Kogo family, most of whom looked a little young to have an almost adult daughter, generally did their part. Anthony Brandon did a good job at getting over the obsessiveness of Chairman Kogo.
Karen, the traitorous ex-girlfriend of Fehr's character, was never going to be an appealing role. In the book, she's a pathetic little jealous creature, beholding to Heaven for her life and willing all the same to sell her out. The TV version of Karen was played by Stacey Keibler, the ex-WWE pretty face. Her obvious bad girl vibe goes uncovered for way too long, the biggest blemish on the show's logic. The girl fight to finish off the last show wasn't exactly Jackie Chan-esque, but it was good enough.
This is a DVD I want when it comes out. The show might be worth re-watching and the kids will like it. But mostly, I want to hear the extra director and writer commentary tracks. Those will be worth the purchase price alone.
HARDWARE: How Do You Mend A Broken Computer?
Well, it isn't by playing any BeeGees music on it.
I heard sounds (and NO it was any Jive Talkin') coming from my computer and told Patrick I thought it was time to replace the hard drive. So, the plan was to replace the hard drive on Tuesday afternoon, which became Tuesday night for reasons I will make clear in a later post. I had made a complete backup of Nuklon to an external MaxStor drive Monday night and I had various disk backups of relatively recent vintage. I thought I was prepared for anything. I was tellin' myself dirty lies.
Okay, okay, I will stop with the historical reference to a long-gone disco band.
Anyways, the upgrade to a new drive was going to be simple. Patrick bought something faster and close to three times the storage, so I wouldn't have to spend time moving things around to squeeze out some space in drives C:, D: and E:, which were straining a little at the seams. I hadn't planned out the distribution of the space to those three drives and drive F:, back in Nuklon's first days. This wasn't going to be an issue, as Patrick was going to Ghost over the drives onto the new drive, allotting them the extra space during the process.
It was going to take two to four hours. Tops.
The first hole in THAT theory came early when it was obvious from Ghost's progress meter that it might take 20-40 hours to do the job. Patrick cancelled and restarted. Minutes later he was looking at me mournfully, informing me the backup MaxStor drive (connected through USB) had been torched by Ghost. The backups were gone. Not a prob! They were only backups. But with the MaxStor now disconnected, the process was back to being a four hour job, and I would end up with a backup in the form of the old drive. Four hours later, the drive was cloned. As per directions, I turned off the computer at this point, awaiting Patrick's return the next day.
That was yesterday. The system wouldn't boot up with the new drive. No way, no how. And Patrick sweated after that for hours. Somewhere in the middle of all that, I agreed to buy a new computer (to be called Popeye, after a few minutes thinking about Poopdeck). I fished the money out of my pocket and told Patrick to put the old drive back in the machine and I would try to run with it until Popeye could be built.
The machine still wouldn't start up.
Long story not short enough, my power supply suffered a fatal seizure somewhere during the afternoon. It more or less, took a drive controller along with it. This, Patrick sussed out after taking Nuklon back to his place and running through the data recovery machines he has. About 12 hours after he started, Patrick returned Nuklon with mostly original equipment, back to me. It had a new power supply and a reset drive controller, which will make the transition over to Popeye this weekend (please, please, please!). In the recovery period, he DID find the data WAS on the new drive, but in the necessary experimentation to get things working, he had to blow the data off that drive.
Where once I had three backups, now I had only the original current data.
BUT I HAVE A WORKING COMPUTER for the first time in about 36 hours. Sure, there were two other computers in the office, but I couldn't access anything with passwords because ALL of my password information was either on Nuklon OR had been on the backup external MaxStor drive. It was always assumed I could have just plugged that into Kingston or Ollie and got all my stored passwords that way. Ahhhh, the old saw about 'assume.'
Needless to say, the first thing I did tonight was to note all of this here to set up my excuses. After that, you better believe the first program I am running is the backup program!
I heard sounds (and NO it was any Jive Talkin') coming from my computer and told Patrick I thought it was time to replace the hard drive. So, the plan was to replace the hard drive on Tuesday afternoon, which became Tuesday night for reasons I will make clear in a later post. I had made a complete backup of Nuklon to an external MaxStor drive Monday night and I had various disk backups of relatively recent vintage. I thought I was prepared for anything. I was tellin' myself dirty lies.
Okay, okay, I will stop with the historical reference to a long-gone disco band.
Anyways, the upgrade to a new drive was going to be simple. Patrick bought something faster and close to three times the storage, so I wouldn't have to spend time moving things around to squeeze out some space in drives C:, D: and E:, which were straining a little at the seams. I hadn't planned out the distribution of the space to those three drives and drive F:, back in Nuklon's first days. This wasn't going to be an issue, as Patrick was going to Ghost over the drives onto the new drive, allotting them the extra space during the process.
It was going to take two to four hours. Tops.
The first hole in THAT theory came early when it was obvious from Ghost's progress meter that it might take 20-40 hours to do the job. Patrick cancelled and restarted. Minutes later he was looking at me mournfully, informing me the backup MaxStor drive (connected through USB) had been torched by Ghost. The backups were gone. Not a prob! They were only backups. But with the MaxStor now disconnected, the process was back to being a four hour job, and I would end up with a backup in the form of the old drive. Four hours later, the drive was cloned. As per directions, I turned off the computer at this point, awaiting Patrick's return the next day.
That was yesterday. The system wouldn't boot up with the new drive. No way, no how. And Patrick sweated after that for hours. Somewhere in the middle of all that, I agreed to buy a new computer (to be called Popeye, after a few minutes thinking about Poopdeck). I fished the money out of my pocket and told Patrick to put the old drive back in the machine and I would try to run with it until Popeye could be built.
The machine still wouldn't start up.
Long story not short enough, my power supply suffered a fatal seizure somewhere during the afternoon. It more or less, took a drive controller along with it. This, Patrick sussed out after taking Nuklon back to his place and running through the data recovery machines he has. About 12 hours after he started, Patrick returned Nuklon with mostly original equipment, back to me. It had a new power supply and a reset drive controller, which will make the transition over to Popeye this weekend (please, please, please!). In the recovery period, he DID find the data WAS on the new drive, but in the necessary experimentation to get things working, he had to blow the data off that drive.
Where once I had three backups, now I had only the original current data.
BUT I HAVE A WORKING COMPUTER for the first time in about 36 hours. Sure, there were two other computers in the office, but I couldn't access anything with passwords because ALL of my password information was either on Nuklon OR had been on the backup external MaxStor drive. It was always assumed I could have just plugged that into Kingston or Ollie and got all my stored passwords that way. Ahhhh, the old saw about 'assume.'
Needless to say, the first thing I did tonight was to note all of this here to set up my excuses. After that, you better believe the first program I am running is the backup program!
Monday, September 15, 2008
MISC: Too Old for This
An infrequent reader of my blog is Angela O'Neill. She'd read it more if I mentioned The Jonas Brothers, the modern-day equivalent of The Osmonds from the days when I was about the age she is now. In fact, simply by mentioning The Jonas Brothers, I've probably opened up a whole can of worms.
You see, by mentioning The Jonas Brothers, I run the risk that a search engine will actually find this blog when somebody types in "the jonas brothers" into a search engine. And won't they be disappointed when they find that this blog is not only NOT about The Jonas Brothers, it's author has never, ever heard a song sung by The Jonas Brothers.
I know ABOUT The Jonas Brothers, because channel surfing the entertainment news, you are bound to run into something about The Jonas Brothers. Apparently, The Jonas Brothers wear promise rings. Guess those are today's equivalents of the mood rings that were popular when I was a teen. I'm sure The Jonas Brothers will honour those rings as they go from (I presume) their teen years into their adult years. But if they don't, The Jonas Brothers will hardly be the only ring-wielders who break that pledge. It's not as if those rings have the record their promoters would LIKE to have us think exists. But I digress.
Family bands like The Jonas Brothers come and they go. Let's see if you all can remember the DiFrancos or the Cowsills? Even the big ones, like the Osmonds and the Carpenters, eventually fade away for one reason or another. Sometimes for tragic reasons. Or they turn into the Jacksons soap opera.
So, while I won't put down Angela's infatuation with The Jonas Brothers, I'm old enough to know it will just pass. She can burble and shriek whenever The Jonas Brothers are mentioned, seen or heard. It's annoying mostly for the dumb, vacant glazed-over look teen girls get when idols like The Jonas Brothers come onto the scene. It's survivable. And eventually, The Jonas Brothers will join other things I can stop buying themed presents for at birthday and Christmas time. Sigh.
Say, whatever happened to those MMMbop kids? The Hansons was it?
You see, by mentioning The Jonas Brothers, I run the risk that a search engine will actually find this blog when somebody types in "the jonas brothers" into a search engine. And won't they be disappointed when they find that this blog is not only NOT about The Jonas Brothers, it's author has never, ever heard a song sung by The Jonas Brothers.
I know ABOUT The Jonas Brothers, because channel surfing the entertainment news, you are bound to run into something about The Jonas Brothers. Apparently, The Jonas Brothers wear promise rings. Guess those are today's equivalents of the mood rings that were popular when I was a teen. I'm sure The Jonas Brothers will honour those rings as they go from (I presume) their teen years into their adult years. But if they don't, The Jonas Brothers will hardly be the only ring-wielders who break that pledge. It's not as if those rings have the record their promoters would LIKE to have us think exists. But I digress.
Family bands like The Jonas Brothers come and they go. Let's see if you all can remember the DiFrancos or the Cowsills? Even the big ones, like the Osmonds and the Carpenters, eventually fade away for one reason or another. Sometimes for tragic reasons. Or they turn into the Jacksons soap opera.
So, while I won't put down Angela's infatuation with The Jonas Brothers, I'm old enough to know it will just pass. She can burble and shriek whenever The Jonas Brothers are mentioned, seen or heard. It's annoying mostly for the dumb, vacant glazed-over look teen girls get when idols like The Jonas Brothers come onto the scene. It's survivable. And eventually, The Jonas Brothers will join other things I can stop buying themed presents for at birthday and Christmas time. Sigh.
Say, whatever happened to those MMMbop kids? The Hansons was it?
SPORTS: Thank You Mr. Shanahan
Finally! A coach has gone 'against' the book. And I bet he feels REAL GOOD about it. The coach in question? Mike Shanahan of the Denver Broncos.
Tell a football coach he's got one chance to score a winning touchdown from the opposition's two-yard line with no time on the clock and MOST of them would accept the chance and forgo playing the game. Naturally, after suffering through three hours of actual football, the coach will play for the tie and overtime, rather than risking it all on a win-0r-lose play. How stupid is that?
Denver was in a game it shouldn't have been Sunday night. The opposition San Diego Chargers were a better team on paper, and but for a computer malfunction in the first quarter and a referee malfunction in the last minute, were better on the field too. Normally, Denver should have indeed lost to the visiting squad. Despite having dodged those 'should haves', the Broncos were fourth and touchdown to go at the Charger four yard line, trailing by a converted touchdown. With no margin for error, Jay Cutler tossed a putative tying touchdown to rookie receiver Eddie Royal. The expected convert would likely tie the game and force overtime, the Chargers being out of timeouts and about a half-minute to play.
But Shanahan, god bless him, didn't blindly accept the common wisdom that you do kick the convert and hope like heck that the coin toss goes your way. This lunacy dates all the way back to 1984 when Nebraska Cornhusker coach Tom Osborne played to win rather than tie the Orange Bowl, knowing a tie would be good enough to win the national collegiate title. The two-point conversion attempt failed and Osborne was pilloried for the decision (although not by me). Since then, the mere thought of screwing up potential overtime in an attempt to win has quaked coaches in their shoes. It is just NOT DONE!
Shanahan didn't just decide out of the blue to break with convention this time. All the planets were aligned for this to be the correct call. First, the Broncos weren't likely to win overtime without the ball first. And maybe not even then. San Diego was better. Secondly, ALL the breaks were going Denver's way, including the inexcusable quick whistle in the final minute on a flummoxed Cutler fumble, which had San Diego grumbling and not at all concentrating. Thirdly, and this is important folks, there WAS a half-minute left on the clock.
Now, let me tell you what that meant. You see, Shanahan was NOT making the final decision in the game! That's right. If the play had gone cockeyed, the Broncos, having two timeouts remaining, had another shot.
An on-side kick.
Would that have been a great chance? No. But about one in five on-side kicks work and the kicking team gets possession somewhere around the midfield line. With two timeouts, a whole field to use and a kicker used to kicking in Denver's light air at high altitude (and usually successfully), it wasn't like Shanahan was moving all in with his bet. It LOOKED a lot gutsier than it was.
And it worked. Instead of Denver needing some luck on the kick-off and a pass or two to set up a winning field goal, it was SAN DIEGO facing the task of picking up about half the length of the field to arrange a winning field goal of the Chargers' own.
Way to go Mike. I hope you would have made the decision even without the on-side kick backup. But at least you coached rather than let a hoary old book decide how the game would end. Instead of an overtime deciding an exciting game, soon to be forgotten, we now have something for the ages. Maybe we'll see more coaches who see a game in their hands and don't let it go, to be decided later.
Often by a coin flip.
Tell a football coach he's got one chance to score a winning touchdown from the opposition's two-yard line with no time on the clock and MOST of them would accept the chance and forgo playing the game. Naturally, after suffering through three hours of actual football, the coach will play for the tie and overtime, rather than risking it all on a win-0r-lose play. How stupid is that?
Denver was in a game it shouldn't have been Sunday night. The opposition San Diego Chargers were a better team on paper, and but for a computer malfunction in the first quarter and a referee malfunction in the last minute, were better on the field too. Normally, Denver should have indeed lost to the visiting squad. Despite having dodged those 'should haves', the Broncos were fourth and touchdown to go at the Charger four yard line, trailing by a converted touchdown. With no margin for error, Jay Cutler tossed a putative tying touchdown to rookie receiver Eddie Royal. The expected convert would likely tie the game and force overtime, the Chargers being out of timeouts and about a half-minute to play.
But Shanahan, god bless him, didn't blindly accept the common wisdom that you do kick the convert and hope like heck that the coin toss goes your way. This lunacy dates all the way back to 1984 when Nebraska Cornhusker coach Tom Osborne played to win rather than tie the Orange Bowl, knowing a tie would be good enough to win the national collegiate title. The two-point conversion attempt failed and Osborne was pilloried for the decision (although not by me). Since then, the mere thought of screwing up potential overtime in an attempt to win has quaked coaches in their shoes. It is just NOT DONE!
Shanahan didn't just decide out of the blue to break with convention this time. All the planets were aligned for this to be the correct call. First, the Broncos weren't likely to win overtime without the ball first. And maybe not even then. San Diego was better. Secondly, ALL the breaks were going Denver's way, including the inexcusable quick whistle in the final minute on a flummoxed Cutler fumble, which had San Diego grumbling and not at all concentrating. Thirdly, and this is important folks, there WAS a half-minute left on the clock.
Now, let me tell you what that meant. You see, Shanahan was NOT making the final decision in the game! That's right. If the play had gone cockeyed, the Broncos, having two timeouts remaining, had another shot.
An on-side kick.
Would that have been a great chance? No. But about one in five on-side kicks work and the kicking team gets possession somewhere around the midfield line. With two timeouts, a whole field to use and a kicker used to kicking in Denver's light air at high altitude (and usually successfully), it wasn't like Shanahan was moving all in with his bet. It LOOKED a lot gutsier than it was.
And it worked. Instead of Denver needing some luck on the kick-off and a pass or two to set up a winning field goal, it was SAN DIEGO facing the task of picking up about half the length of the field to arrange a winning field goal of the Chargers' own.
Way to go Mike. I hope you would have made the decision even without the on-side kick backup. But at least you coached rather than let a hoary old book decide how the game would end. Instead of an overtime deciding an exciting game, soon to be forgotten, we now have something for the ages. Maybe we'll see more coaches who see a game in their hands and don't let it go, to be decided later.
Often by a coin flip.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
HARDWARE: It's Dead, Gary
Well, it appears I was wrong about the cause of my Microsoft Trackball Explorer (an original v1) problems. It's not the driver. It's the hardware. And as Spock would say, "It's dead."
So, for the time being (meaning today), I am using one of the Logitech Trackman Wheels floating around (I'm stealing it from my laptop carryall). It's letting me get by. I'm irked at it's constant desire to middle-click AND click on one depress of the scroll wheel. That tends to NOT be what I want. But being less quick on the trigger has left me with some control of the device.
I looked on the internet to see what my options were and folks, they are grim. Really, the only track device with a big finger ball and a scroll wheel leaves with one and only one choice. The Logitech Cordless Optical Trackman. I don't necessarily want a cordless device, this NOT being a mouse and all, but c'est la vie. I can buy it around the corner at Staples for 80 bucks, or detour to Tiger Direct on my next visit to my main client and save 20 bucks. After a day of working with the thumb marble type Trackman Wheel, I'll know if I have the stamina/patience to save the 20 bucks.
I've used the Explorer for four years as my main machine's pointing device. Before that, I was pretty well a Logitech trackball user. I had several and quite liked all that let me move the ball with my fingers, rather than my thumb. I still have an old Logitech trackball on my reading computer. But it doesn't have a scroll wheel and using anything without a scroll wheel on the internet is just plain too much work.
Whatever happens, it's going to a strange day using my right fingers for the the left and right buttons after all these years using my thumb!
So, for the time being (meaning today), I am using one of the Logitech Trackman Wheels floating around (I'm stealing it from my laptop carryall). It's letting me get by. I'm irked at it's constant desire to middle-click AND click on one depress of the scroll wheel. That tends to NOT be what I want. But being less quick on the trigger has left me with some control of the device.
I looked on the internet to see what my options were and folks, they are grim. Really, the only track device with a big finger ball and a scroll wheel leaves with one and only one choice. The Logitech Cordless Optical Trackman. I don't necessarily want a cordless device, this NOT being a mouse and all, but c'est la vie. I can buy it around the corner at Staples for 80 bucks, or detour to Tiger Direct on my next visit to my main client and save 20 bucks. After a day of working with the thumb marble type Trackman Wheel, I'll know if I have the stamina/patience to save the 20 bucks.
I've used the Explorer for four years as my main machine's pointing device. Before that, I was pretty well a Logitech trackball user. I had several and quite liked all that let me move the ball with my fingers, rather than my thumb. I still have an old Logitech trackball on my reading computer. But it doesn't have a scroll wheel and using anything without a scroll wheel on the internet is just plain too much work.
Whatever happens, it's going to a strange day using my right fingers for the the left and right buttons after all these years using my thumb!
Saturday, September 13, 2008
SOFTWARE: A Nice Orderly Drive Display
I forget things. Thankfully, in posting a blog entry, I have easy access to my own notes to accomplish things I rarely do.
Such as setting the display in Windows Explorer to list the name of each drive with the letter of the drive first. This is what it looks like on my computer:
I wanted to do this on another computer I was working on, but I could NOT remember how I had done this! It took some searching through Google, but I happened upon the solution again. And now I record it here for posterity (and ease of finding it again!)
Such as setting the display in Windows Explorer to list the name of each drive with the letter of the drive first. This is what it looks like on my computer:
I wanted to do this on another computer I was working on, but I could NOT remember how I had done this! It took some searching through Google, but I happened upon the solution again. And now I record it here for posterity (and ease of finding it again!)- Run REGEDIT (I assume you know how to do this. If not, get someone that does)
- Goto the HKLM\Software\Microsoft\ Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer key
- Look for a sub-key called "ShowDriveLettersFirst"
- If found, Right-Click and choose Edit. Else Right-Click and choose Create DWORD, making the new key "ShowDriveLettersFirst"
- In either case, make the value 4
- Exit RegEdit and reboot
- Happiness ensues
HARDWARE: Gotta Hand It to Microsoft
Twice over the last two months I have 'upgraded' the driver for my hoary old Microsoft Trackball Explorer. It is the pointing device of choice here at the Castle of Confusion, aka The Home for Wayward Trackballs. Each time I have upgraded, I have experienced cursor freezing by the mouse. It moves erratically, slows down and then refuses to budge.
Each time I open up the innards of the Trackball Explorer and shoo away any dust. Usually, it's surprisingly sparse. Almost non-existent. And you know, the operation doesn't solve a blessed thing. So I stick in one my Logitech Track Man Wheels (told ya I have several), use IT to roll back the Microsoft mouse driver to the 2001 version and reboot the computer.
Presto! It's like magic. As long as I resist the urge to 'upgrade' when Microsoft puts out a new Intellipoint Driver, I'm working like normal. It DOES figure that my trackball breaks when I 'upgrade.' It's a discontinued model and Microsoft doesn't make any money off me while I continue to use it. I SHOULD know that's the purpose of 'upgrading,' but I'm old and I forget sometimes.
Let's hope I'll remember NOT to upgrade next time. This shutting down and rebooting takes time!
Each time I open up the innards of the Trackball Explorer and shoo away any dust. Usually, it's surprisingly sparse. Almost non-existent. And you know, the operation doesn't solve a blessed thing. So I stick in one my Logitech Track Man Wheels (told ya I have several), use IT to roll back the Microsoft mouse driver to the 2001 version and reboot the computer.
Presto! It's like magic. As long as I resist the urge to 'upgrade' when Microsoft puts out a new Intellipoint Driver, I'm working like normal. It DOES figure that my trackball breaks when I 'upgrade.' It's a discontinued model and Microsoft doesn't make any money off me while I continue to use it. I SHOULD know that's the purpose of 'upgrading,' but I'm old and I forget sometimes.
Let's hope I'll remember NOT to upgrade next time. This shutting down and rebooting takes time!
Friday, September 12, 2008
MISC: A Prediction About the Next News Cycle
I've got a story right out of central casting. Native Canadian aboriginal girl grows up on a reserve up in the northern climes of Ontario. She hangs around with a bad crowd and does neither herself or her schoolwork proud. A stranger passes through and helps her understand the hole she is digging herself isn't impossible to climb out of. It just takes a determination to turn her life around.
Months later, she puts her past and hometown behind her and moves to the big city, moving in with a Christian family who see her determination to make something of her life, bad start in all. She's 17 and sees light where once there was doom and gloom. She spends the next two months trying to get into local schools, both public and private, for her junior year in high school. Nobody wants to let her in. Seems there's been a string of deadbeat aboriginals who move south with the specific intention of getting into a school and onto welfare. They aren't going to let themselves be victimized again.
The young lady and her landlord family make the circuit of various governmental agencies. A school trustee is particularly hostile. The federal member of parliament isn't interested, what with the general national election having been just called. Too much need for organization to spend time on a minor's problem. Various governmental bureaucracies cite the need for lengthy investigation before making rulings. In the meantime, the school calendar clicks away the new school year.
So what do you think would happen if the young lady called a press conference for first thing in the morning, announcing she was going to exercise her constitutional right to get an education. That she wasn't going to let the prejudices and biases of school officials against OTHERS of her people, blockade her in an attempt to not become just another failed aboriginal. That she was going to school, to at least audit, if not to officially attend.
Think that might bring out the press? Think that might get that MP and the MP's opponents in the national election out to promote helping the underdog fight for an education? Think that school trustee ends up back on the Board of Education?
All interesting questions. And you might be reading about them next week or watching them on TV or on YouTube.
Months later, she puts her past and hometown behind her and moves to the big city, moving in with a Christian family who see her determination to make something of her life, bad start in all. She's 17 and sees light where once there was doom and gloom. She spends the next two months trying to get into local schools, both public and private, for her junior year in high school. Nobody wants to let her in. Seems there's been a string of deadbeat aboriginals who move south with the specific intention of getting into a school and onto welfare. They aren't going to let themselves be victimized again.
The young lady and her landlord family make the circuit of various governmental agencies. A school trustee is particularly hostile. The federal member of parliament isn't interested, what with the general national election having been just called. Too much need for organization to spend time on a minor's problem. Various governmental bureaucracies cite the need for lengthy investigation before making rulings. In the meantime, the school calendar clicks away the new school year.
So what do you think would happen if the young lady called a press conference for first thing in the morning, announcing she was going to exercise her constitutional right to get an education. That she wasn't going to let the prejudices and biases of school officials against OTHERS of her people, blockade her in an attempt to not become just another failed aboriginal. That she was going to school, to at least audit, if not to officially attend.
Think that might bring out the press? Think that might get that MP and the MP's opponents in the national election out to promote helping the underdog fight for an education? Think that school trustee ends up back on the Board of Education?
All interesting questions. And you might be reading about them next week or watching them on TV or on YouTube.
TV: The Secret Life of a Degrassi Series Wannabe
Understated versus over-the-top. That's how I see Degrassi: The Next Generation as compared to this summer's American-made redo of the show, The Secret Life of The American Teenager.
The creators of Degrassi have been at the kids' TV-creation game for just shy of two decades now. They've always approached the need to entertain and inform by leaning on both equally. Just about all the hot button issues have been dealt with at one time or another in the seven-odd shows that have carried Degrassi banners. In most cases, bad things resulted in bad results. No glamourizing social ills that don't result in trips to Disneyland. Death, disease and disaster have been part of Degrassi forever.
As a result, Degrassi deserves its place amongst the great all-time TV shows for kids.
Naturally, there have been a host of imitation of the high-school versions of Degrassi state-side over the years. The successful ones have be the big-bucks school shows that take place in a universe not inhabited by you, me, most kids or the casts of Degrassi. Shows like The O.C., Beverly Hills 90210 and Gossip Girl ignore reality and make the case that money lets you get away with anything fiction-wise.
This year, the new Degrassi-wannabe has been The Secret Life of The American Teenager. There's a heart to the show, although it doesn't belong to the lead viewpoint character, Shailene Woodley's Amy. Woodley's in tough, as she has to play a wallflower, impregnated during her first and only time with the school stud. Wallflowers retreat from the spotlight by definition, so it's hard for Woodley to back away and still stand up defiantly for herself. Rather than sympathetic, she comes across as a whiner. And it's hard to see how Woodley can do any better.
On the other hand, her new boyfriend who forgives all after falling in love at first sight, Ben Boykewich, played by Kenny Baumann, IS the heart of the show. But he's too over the top, taking the high road at every turn to new heights. He wants to marry his 16-year old new beau after finding out she's pregnant by another guy. He behaves as if this situation is no big thing and makes grand gestures throughout the 11-episode run at every chance. His heart's in the right place, the response is just too much into farce to make him anything but a caricature. Ben's dad, played by Steve Schirippa, is more of the same. Both Baumann and Schirippa are extremely likeable, if not believeable.
Other characters in the story are stock characters written with broad strokes. The soon-to-be-father is a completely unsympathetic sex addict (we ARE talking about high schoolers, remember?) who you more or less hope somebody will run over with a car. EVERY girl, from plain to not-plain surrenders to his 'charm' knowing him to be a creep. Such characters do exist in less broad terms. It's just another case of the creators of the show not willing to give any character any nuance.
The school slut, the school queen virgin and the horny jock that bounces between them, don't have any sublety to their characters either. That the slut is a valedictorian candidate with daddy issues hardly qualifies as depth of character.
I could go on and on. The fact that Amy's philandering father (with the mother of the slut no less) and the school guidance counselor are the anchor poles of reasonability in this show says it all. At no point does this show ever raise to Degrassi levels.
And what's really bad about the show is the fact that Molly Ringwald, who plays Amy's mother in this show, is, well ... matronly in this show. The young high schooler herself of all those old movies and the first year of Facts of Life, looks tired and old, these 20 years later.
If nothing else, this show deserves a thumbs down for that reason alone.
The creators of Degrassi have been at the kids' TV-creation game for just shy of two decades now. They've always approached the need to entertain and inform by leaning on both equally. Just about all the hot button issues have been dealt with at one time or another in the seven-odd shows that have carried Degrassi banners. In most cases, bad things resulted in bad results. No glamourizing social ills that don't result in trips to Disneyland. Death, disease and disaster have been part of Degrassi forever.
As a result, Degrassi deserves its place amongst the great all-time TV shows for kids.
Naturally, there have been a host of imitation of the high-school versions of Degrassi state-side over the years. The successful ones have be the big-bucks school shows that take place in a universe not inhabited by you, me, most kids or the casts of Degrassi. Shows like The O.C., Beverly Hills 90210 and Gossip Girl ignore reality and make the case that money lets you get away with anything fiction-wise.
This year, the new Degrassi-wannabe has been The Secret Life of The American Teenager. There's a heart to the show, although it doesn't belong to the lead viewpoint character, Shailene Woodley's Amy. Woodley's in tough, as she has to play a wallflower, impregnated during her first and only time with the school stud. Wallflowers retreat from the spotlight by definition, so it's hard for Woodley to back away and still stand up defiantly for herself. Rather than sympathetic, she comes across as a whiner. And it's hard to see how Woodley can do any better.
On the other hand, her new boyfriend who forgives all after falling in love at first sight, Ben Boykewich, played by Kenny Baumann, IS the heart of the show. But he's too over the top, taking the high road at every turn to new heights. He wants to marry his 16-year old new beau after finding out she's pregnant by another guy. He behaves as if this situation is no big thing and makes grand gestures throughout the 11-episode run at every chance. His heart's in the right place, the response is just too much into farce to make him anything but a caricature. Ben's dad, played by Steve Schirippa, is more of the same. Both Baumann and Schirippa are extremely likeable, if not believeable.
Other characters in the story are stock characters written with broad strokes. The soon-to-be-father is a completely unsympathetic sex addict (we ARE talking about high schoolers, remember?) who you more or less hope somebody will run over with a car. EVERY girl, from plain to not-plain surrenders to his 'charm' knowing him to be a creep. Such characters do exist in less broad terms. It's just another case of the creators of the show not willing to give any character any nuance.
The school slut, the school queen virgin and the horny jock that bounces between them, don't have any sublety to their characters either. That the slut is a valedictorian candidate with daddy issues hardly qualifies as depth of character.
I could go on and on. The fact that Amy's philandering father (with the mother of the slut no less) and the school guidance counselor are the anchor poles of reasonability in this show says it all. At no point does this show ever raise to Degrassi levels.
And what's really bad about the show is the fact that Molly Ringwald, who plays Amy's mother in this show, is, well ... matronly in this show. The young high schooler herself of all those old movies and the first year of Facts of Life, looks tired and old, these 20 years later.
If nothing else, this show deserves a thumbs down for that reason alone.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
SPORTS: Let's Get a Move On!
It's happened a million times before. Thursday night's game between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Chicago White Sox included a hoary old tradition. Manager Ozzie Guillen got caught not anticipating the falling apart of his pitcher and needed extra time to warm up Matt Thornton. So he motioned for catcher A.J. Pierczynski to go out the mound and inquire as to Gavin Floyd's supper plans. And when that wasn't enough time to get Thornton sufficiently warmed up, A.J. probably asked Floyd for his picks in this weekend's football pools.
When that bantering came to an end, the umpire finally getting tired of the play-acting, Guillen jumped out of the dugout to finally make the change that was these wasted minutes in the making.
It wasn't like Guillen had invented some clever new stalling tactic. This one probably dates back to Babe Ruth's day. Before that, most pitchers started and finished. Thus, no need to make time for warming up. Does the fact that it's been around longer than Commish Bug Selig mean we should still be putting up with the antics?
No, of course not.
Time for new uber-commissioner of all things sport (that would be ME of course) to make a new rule. If a catcher goes to the mound for a visit, the pitcher must complete pitching to the current batter and cannot be replaced, except in cases of injury.
While I'm on about extinguishing the charade that was put on display again Thursday night, I'll also throw a battering ram at the constant trotting out to the pitcher that some catchers turn into a marathon. Every catcher gets ONE unaccompanied visit to a pitcher in each game. After that, when he goes out, so does the ump.
There's no privacy in baseball, to mangle a perfectly good Tom Hanks quote. What there IS is a time crunch problem that could be partially resolved by getting rid of these wastages of time with catchers and pitchers catching up on chit-chat.
Interestingly enough, Guillen would probably thrive under my rules too. Instead of the catcher going out for a civilized converstation with the soon-to-be-replaced pitcher, it will be Guillen going out to get tossed out. A good manager tantrum can go minutes.
But at least we would be entertained while Thornton or whoever warms up.
When that bantering came to an end, the umpire finally getting tired of the play-acting, Guillen jumped out of the dugout to finally make the change that was these wasted minutes in the making.
It wasn't like Guillen had invented some clever new stalling tactic. This one probably dates back to Babe Ruth's day. Before that, most pitchers started and finished. Thus, no need to make time for warming up. Does the fact that it's been around longer than Commish Bug Selig mean we should still be putting up with the antics?
No, of course not.
Time for new uber-commissioner of all things sport (that would be ME of course) to make a new rule. If a catcher goes to the mound for a visit, the pitcher must complete pitching to the current batter and cannot be replaced, except in cases of injury.
While I'm on about extinguishing the charade that was put on display again Thursday night, I'll also throw a battering ram at the constant trotting out to the pitcher that some catchers turn into a marathon. Every catcher gets ONE unaccompanied visit to a pitcher in each game. After that, when he goes out, so does the ump.
There's no privacy in baseball, to mangle a perfectly good Tom Hanks quote. What there IS is a time crunch problem that could be partially resolved by getting rid of these wastages of time with catchers and pitchers catching up on chit-chat.
Interestingly enough, Guillen would probably thrive under my rules too. Instead of the catcher going out for a civilized converstation with the soon-to-be-replaced pitcher, it will be Guillen going out to get tossed out. A good manager tantrum can go minutes.
But at least we would be entertained while Thornton or whoever warms up.
MISC: Prediction Correct. As IF it Wouldn't Pan Out!
Off to the store for a late night run, hopefully to find some of those lemon turnovers. If you recall, I predicted I would be disappointed.
Naturally, there were NO lemon turnovers. Lots of those disgusting raspberry ones. A FULL row of caramel turnovers, a rather unlikely combination in my mind. Was not tempted in the slightest to test out the theory that they were edible, yet alone tasty. I peered past the first tier of plastic boxes and found some hiding behind the front row. Each turned out to be raspberry.
With a sigh, I looked at one last hidden container. It was apple.
The anticipated reward of two weeks ago, it seemed suddenly lacking. But I get over my disappointment quick. There's only one of the original four left as of this writing. And my midnight snack is still ahead.
Naturally, there were NO lemon turnovers. Lots of those disgusting raspberry ones. A FULL row of caramel turnovers, a rather unlikely combination in my mind. Was not tempted in the slightest to test out the theory that they were edible, yet alone tasty. I peered past the first tier of plastic boxes and found some hiding behind the front row. Each turned out to be raspberry.
With a sigh, I looked at one last hidden container. It was apple.
The anticipated reward of two weeks ago, it seemed suddenly lacking. But I get over my disappointment quick. There's only one of the original four left as of this writing. And my midnight snack is still ahead.
TV: Chris Noth is My Kind of Detective
Christopher Noth is leaving the Law and Order stable of TV shows, putting his role as Detective Mike Logan behind him once again. Law and Order: Criminal Intent will be all the poorer for that decision.
First, let me point out that Jeff Goldblum is usually VERY interesting and will probably bring an entertaining persona to the constantly changing show. But Noth's departure means the male leads of the show will be Goldblum and the similarly outre Vincent D'Onofrio. D'Onofrio, who I quite enjoyed throught the first three years of the show, has been moving into weirder and weirder territory since, leaving behind all subtle Sherlockian undertones to his role. Frankly, his episodes with Kathryn Erbe have not come close to the Noth-Julianne Nicholson/Alicia Witt episodes of the last two years.
Noth is, or rather was, the everyman of the detective bureau. A well-dressed repressed thug, Noth's Logan fought short temper and political lack of savvy, to show up and solve a LOT of crimes over the last decade or so. I can forgive him his fling with that weirdly popular Sex in the City show, because Noth turned in solid, believable performances each week. You could see when he finally 'got it.' You could sympathise with his urges to punch a perp out, and be happy he didn't.
Truthfully, which TV detective would you rather have investigating your murder? I mean, they all succeed most of the time. But between you and me, dontcha think Logan would go the extra yard for somebody ordinary like you or me?
So long Logan. Noth, don't be a stranger on the small screen.
First, let me point out that Jeff Goldblum is usually VERY interesting and will probably bring an entertaining persona to the constantly changing show. But Noth's departure means the male leads of the show will be Goldblum and the similarly outre Vincent D'Onofrio. D'Onofrio, who I quite enjoyed throught the first three years of the show, has been moving into weirder and weirder territory since, leaving behind all subtle Sherlockian undertones to his role. Frankly, his episodes with Kathryn Erbe have not come close to the Noth-Julianne Nicholson/Alicia Witt episodes of the last two years.
Noth is, or rather was, the everyman of the detective bureau. A well-dressed repressed thug, Noth's Logan fought short temper and political lack of savvy, to show up and solve a LOT of crimes over the last decade or so. I can forgive him his fling with that weirdly popular Sex in the City show, because Noth turned in solid, believable performances each week. You could see when he finally 'got it.' You could sympathise with his urges to punch a perp out, and be happy he didn't.
Truthfully, which TV detective would you rather have investigating your murder? I mean, they all succeed most of the time. But between you and me, dontcha think Logan would go the extra yard for somebody ordinary like you or me?
So long Logan. Noth, don't be a stranger on the small screen.
POLITICS: Lie. See, You CAN Type It, Say it.
Facts are not always black and white, meaning true or false. Some times there are nuances that result in silliness like quibbling over the meaning of 'is.' That's politician crap for "I'm thinking, just let me sit here and think a spell. My answer needs thinking about."
On the other hand, I will be glad for the day when a politician who is being lied about and smeared (say, Barack Obama), stands up and says, "He (or she) is lying." Straight out calling a prevaricating, disassembling, factually incorrect, misinterpreting of the truth opponent, the lying weasel that he or she is, would feel satisfying. But the word liar seems impossible to utter. Why?
I don't want any politically correct words any more. If Palin's LYING, and I believe she is because she is a politician, then SAY SO! Don't induce grey where black and white exists. IF a Fox news personality is talking, they are lying. It's endemic at that organization. SAY SO!
Obama's said "ENOUGH!" Now it is time to use that other fightin' word.
On the other hand, I will be glad for the day when a politician who is being lied about and smeared (say, Barack Obama), stands up and says, "He (or she) is lying." Straight out calling a prevaricating, disassembling, factually incorrect, misinterpreting of the truth opponent, the lying weasel that he or she is, would feel satisfying. But the word liar seems impossible to utter. Why?
I don't want any politically correct words any more. If Palin's LYING, and I believe she is because she is a politician, then SAY SO! Don't induce grey where black and white exists. IF a Fox news personality is talking, they are lying. It's endemic at that organization. SAY SO!
Obama's said "ENOUGH!" Now it is time to use that other fightin' word.
SPORTS: One MORE Question That Makes You Go Hmmmm!
Okay, just one more question I have no answer for.
Let's say you are a Frenchman who enjoys his or her athletics. Let's stick with him for a second or two. The Tour de France comes through your area yearly. On the morning of the race's proximity, you prepare a picnic basket full of wine, cheese and bread, all of delightful local vintage. You take said basket and other comforts of home to a spot just off the road near the bend into town. You get there plenty early and set up for the morning's excitement. At around 10:23 am, the first cyclist zooms by, barely leading a pelaton of about seventy riders. By 10:24, even the slowest laggard of the lot has come and gone out of sight. At 10:25 am, you pull out the wine and start drinking.
What, oh what, compells ANYBODY to watch a minute-long slice of a race that lasts HOURS and finishes in some far-off locale? Can ANYBODY explain this?
Let's say you are a Frenchman who enjoys his or her athletics. Let's stick with him for a second or two. The Tour de France comes through your area yearly. On the morning of the race's proximity, you prepare a picnic basket full of wine, cheese and bread, all of delightful local vintage. You take said basket and other comforts of home to a spot just off the road near the bend into town. You get there plenty early and set up for the morning's excitement. At around 10:23 am, the first cyclist zooms by, barely leading a pelaton of about seventy riders. By 10:24, even the slowest laggard of the lot has come and gone out of sight. At 10:25 am, you pull out the wine and start drinking.
What, oh what, compells ANYBODY to watch a minute-long slice of a race that lasts HOURS and finishes in some far-off locale? Can ANYBODY explain this?
SPORTS: Will THIS Save Ricciardi and Cost Blue Jays a Fan?
If the current September rush the Toronto Blue Jays are experiencing undoes seven years of mediocrity and convinces management and deluded fans that the team is on the right track, there is a chance, a growing chance, that both Paul Godfrey and the GM jerk JP Ricciardi will return when spring training in Florida brings back baseball in 2009.
If so, I won't be amongst them. I've already decided I will throw my lot in with the Minnesota Twins. They play the game right. They win. They have a Canuck or two, depending on the health of Justin Morneau and Jesse Crain. Lots to admire about them.
For the record, I'd love for the Blue Jays to continue this improbable run up Boston's backside, hoping it isn't the Tampa Bay Rays' backsliding that keeps them in the hunt. But even a seven-for-seven Toronto sweep over the Bostonions doesn't achieve the goal of grabbing the wildcard ducat to the playoffs. No, they need Minnesota also to play no better than .500 ball during the same period to wake up in late September with October plans.
Regardless of next year, THAT would be entertainment. They'd probably show it on the Science Fiction Channel, under the banner of "Lightning Strikes Twice! Toronto Repeats Colorado Run!" I'm up for a good show, since I've stuck with the team through these nauseating Ricciardi years.
But all horror shows must end.
If so, I won't be amongst them. I've already decided I will throw my lot in with the Minnesota Twins. They play the game right. They win. They have a Canuck or two, depending on the health of Justin Morneau and Jesse Crain. Lots to admire about them.
For the record, I'd love for the Blue Jays to continue this improbable run up Boston's backside, hoping it isn't the Tampa Bay Rays' backsliding that keeps them in the hunt. But even a seven-for-seven Toronto sweep over the Bostonions doesn't achieve the goal of grabbing the wildcard ducat to the playoffs. No, they need Minnesota also to play no better than .500 ball during the same period to wake up in late September with October plans.
Regardless of next year, THAT would be entertainment. They'd probably show it on the Science Fiction Channel, under the banner of "Lightning Strikes Twice! Toronto Repeats Colorado Run!" I'm up for a good show, since I've stuck with the team through these nauseating Ricciardi years.
But all horror shows must end.
SPORTS: The Argo Bounce Gets Stubler
Surprise! No, not the one, one experienced when hearing Rich Stubler had been fired as Toronto Argo head coach. You've read it was going to happen here before. No, the surprise was the reprise (which SHOULDN'T be a surprise) of yet another former Argo head coach as its new head coach.
The third-time-around award-winner was NOT Mike Clemons being recalled from the CEO office to re-take the head coaching job. Nope. It was version 3.0 of the Don Mathews Coaching Show Comes to Toronto. The Don, the winningest CFL coach of all time, with more stops in more CFL towns and along the sidelines of the most CFL games ever, is back again.
In a way, it was almost predictable. It will also be predictable that if the Argos lost to Winnipeg on Friday, there'll be no talk of "nothing to worry about. All we have to do is to make the playoffs." That's what got Stubler canned. When a coach of a vastly under-performing team shrugs off an embarassing loss, with the team owners and front office standing close enough to the action to smell the stinko smell, his career is measured in hours. Or less.
Once again, a defensive genius has failed to grasp and hold onto the head coaching job in Toronto. That's as predictable as the fact that The Don's act will last less than three years here in Toronto. The over and under on HIM leaving, willing or otherwise, can't be much more than 20 games.
Argo fans hope a Grey Cup game will be one of them.
The third-time-around award-winner was NOT Mike Clemons being recalled from the CEO office to re-take the head coaching job. Nope. It was version 3.0 of the Don Mathews Coaching Show Comes to Toronto. The Don, the winningest CFL coach of all time, with more stops in more CFL towns and along the sidelines of the most CFL games ever, is back again.
In a way, it was almost predictable. It will also be predictable that if the Argos lost to Winnipeg on Friday, there'll be no talk of "nothing to worry about. All we have to do is to make the playoffs." That's what got Stubler canned. When a coach of a vastly under-performing team shrugs off an embarassing loss, with the team owners and front office standing close enough to the action to smell the stinko smell, his career is measured in hours. Or less.
Once again, a defensive genius has failed to grasp and hold onto the head coaching job in Toronto. That's as predictable as the fact that The Don's act will last less than three years here in Toronto. The over and under on HIM leaving, willing or otherwise, can't be much more than 20 games.
Argo fans hope a Grey Cup game will be one of them.
MISC: Questions That Make You Go Hmmmm?
I am going to cheat to catch up a bit and do a bunch of small ones. But even amongst the small posts, this one is going to be a series of questions I don't have answers to after spending a (VERY) little time investigating.
What was the last US Network show that was shot completely in black and white for a full season? And when? I 'THINK' I can remember black and white shows as late as 1967. There might be shows from 1969 and maybe even 1970. I know one of the daytime soaps (Day After Tomorrow?) went colour right about then. Could Dark Shadows be the answer? (Nope, went colour in Fall of 1967) At any rate. I DO NOT know the answer. Curious about it, since I just acquired a complete set of the British BBC show Timeslip, a sort of Dr. Who without the Doctor, shot in 1970 ... in black and white.
Has any player ever worn the red, white and blue Major League baseball uniforms ... I mean the Red Sox, White Sox and Blue Jays uniforms? Dewayne Wise, an ex -Blue Jay turned White Sox, never played for Boston. Mike Timlin never played for the Pale Hose. After that, my mind shut down for possibilities.
A Nigerian comes from Nigeria. So what do you call a citizen of Niger?
Finally for this post, I just got a book from a favourite author as a belated birthday present. So how come I've never heard of Eoin Colfer's Benny and Omar before? Turns out it's a seven-year old book that mostly predates Colfer's Artemis Fowl books. If you go to amazon.ca and type in eoin colfer, you'll get three pages of Colfer books, none of them Benny and Omar. Type in Benny and Omar and you get a page of the book, each written by, get this, Eoin Colfer. IF you click on the Eoin Colfer link at amazon.ca, you will then get TWENTY EIGHT pages of Eoin Colfer material.
Hmmmmmm.
What was the last US Network show that was shot completely in black and white for a full season? And when? I 'THINK' I can remember black and white shows as late as 1967. There might be shows from 1969 and maybe even 1970. I know one of the daytime soaps (Day After Tomorrow?) went colour right about then. Could Dark Shadows be the answer? (Nope, went colour in Fall of 1967) At any rate. I DO NOT know the answer. Curious about it, since I just acquired a complete set of the British BBC show Timeslip, a sort of Dr. Who without the Doctor, shot in 1970 ... in black and white.
Has any player ever worn the red, white and blue Major League baseball uniforms ... I mean the Red Sox, White Sox and Blue Jays uniforms? Dewayne Wise, an ex -Blue Jay turned White Sox, never played for Boston. Mike Timlin never played for the Pale Hose. After that, my mind shut down for possibilities.
A Nigerian comes from Nigeria. So what do you call a citizen of Niger?
Finally for this post, I just got a book from a favourite author as a belated birthday present. So how come I've never heard of Eoin Colfer's Benny and Omar before? Turns out it's a seven-year old book that mostly predates Colfer's Artemis Fowl books. If you go to amazon.ca and type in eoin colfer, you'll get three pages of Colfer books, none of them Benny and Omar. Type in Benny and Omar and you get a page of the book, each written by, get this, Eoin Colfer. IF you click on the Eoin Colfer link at amazon.ca, you will then get TWENTY EIGHT pages of Eoin Colfer material.
Hmmmmmm.
Monday, September 08, 2008
TV: Thumbs DOWN for At the Movies
No, I am not dead. But I wish I was after seeing the new incarnation of At the Movies, starring Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz. Two thumbs down, and soooo bad, my toes curled up in negative support for this inanimate corpse of a once-great show. I caught the debut while doing some channel-hopping during a commercial on the sports news. It was such a train wreck of a TV show that I just couldn't turn away and go back to football highlights.
To think this is the successor to the shows first put on by Roger Ebert and the late, great Gene Siskel is upsetting. If you thought Ebert and Richard Roeper and then Roeper and the many Ebert stand-ins were a step down from the original classic critique, you ain't seen nothin' yet.
Lyons and Mankiewicz, who carry names familiar to movie goers (critic daddy Jeffrey Lyons and Oscar winners granddaddy Herman and uncle Joe Mankewicz), have no charisma and no chemistry. Bluntly, they're terrible. Even when they disagree, they plaster fake smiles on their faces and try to outgrin each other in the 'debate.' There doesn't seem to be any vehemence to either side of their debate on the movie, Traitor. Ten minutes after the show, I couldn't remember which was for and which was against the movie.
Ebert and Siskel's family forbade the show from using their trade-marked thumbs up/down rating system, necessitating a new See-it, Skip-it, Rent-it scale. Oddly. the ability to vacillate between yes and no does NOT work. Hope they get rid of the Rent-it rating soon. Actually, since I don't plan to see the show again anytime soon. I really don't care. It's just a suggestion for the show producers in case they catch some other unwitting soul surfing the TV at 1:30 on a Sunday night.
By the way, I think we now know why Ebert and Roeper bailed on this show. There's also a new format that includes guest 'panels,' which consist of three people I've never heard of trying to scream their bon mots over each other so that we get FIVE ratings rather than two for a couple of the movies. IF they were going to foist this on Roeper and whoever, good on Richard for telling them to shove their pile of excrement on some other career.
To think this is the successor to the shows first put on by Roger Ebert and the late, great Gene Siskel is upsetting. If you thought Ebert and Richard Roeper and then Roeper and the many Ebert stand-ins were a step down from the original classic critique, you ain't seen nothin' yet.
Lyons and Mankiewicz, who carry names familiar to movie goers (critic daddy Jeffrey Lyons and Oscar winners granddaddy Herman and uncle Joe Mankewicz), have no charisma and no chemistry. Bluntly, they're terrible. Even when they disagree, they plaster fake smiles on their faces and try to outgrin each other in the 'debate.' There doesn't seem to be any vehemence to either side of their debate on the movie, Traitor. Ten minutes after the show, I couldn't remember which was for and which was against the movie.
Ebert and Siskel's family forbade the show from using their trade-marked thumbs up/down rating system, necessitating a new See-it, Skip-it, Rent-it scale. Oddly. the ability to vacillate between yes and no does NOT work. Hope they get rid of the Rent-it rating soon. Actually, since I don't plan to see the show again anytime soon. I really don't care. It's just a suggestion for the show producers in case they catch some other unwitting soul surfing the TV at 1:30 on a Sunday night.
By the way, I think we now know why Ebert and Roeper bailed on this show. There's also a new format that includes guest 'panels,' which consist of three people I've never heard of trying to scream their bon mots over each other so that we get FIVE ratings rather than two for a couple of the movies. IF they were going to foist this on Roeper and whoever, good on Richard for telling them to shove their pile of excrement on some other career.
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
MISC: A Lemony Fresh Experience
So, I'm in a store doing my late night (past midnight) shopping and I need something dessert-y. I can go weeks without any desserts. But when I need one, I need one bad. I had my heart set on a plastic container of apple turnovers, the puffed pastry ones with the chunky sugar topping. Bad for a diabetic, but what the heck.
Naturally, they didn't have any. Row upon row of raspberry, that most wretched of all red berries. Hate them. But peeking out at the end of the row were two containers. They weren't apple turnovers, they were LEMON turnovers!
Now, let me admit a love for lemon pies. Not lemon Meringue pies. I have NO idea why people need some frothy spun sugar atop their lemon pies. If they didn't want tart greatness, than they should be eating cotton candy or something else ephemeral. I like my lemon pie (and I have TWO sources of them who deliver around holidays) plain. Not even a la mode.
But I paused looking at the lemon turnovers. It looked almost too good to be true. Tangy lemon. Puff pastry. That usually forbidden sugar overload. Pause over. I grabbed them.
The four pastries lasted exactly 27 hours. It's taken everything in my will power (and a September heat wave) not to leave the cave and buy more. Given my luck, there won't be any lemon turnovers the next time I visit the store anyway.
I'll probably have to be satisfied with apple turnovers.
Naturally, they didn't have any. Row upon row of raspberry, that most wretched of all red berries. Hate them. But peeking out at the end of the row were two containers. They weren't apple turnovers, they were LEMON turnovers!
Now, let me admit a love for lemon pies. Not lemon Meringue pies. I have NO idea why people need some frothy spun sugar atop their lemon pies. If they didn't want tart greatness, than they should be eating cotton candy or something else ephemeral. I like my lemon pie (and I have TWO sources of them who deliver around holidays) plain. Not even a la mode.
But I paused looking at the lemon turnovers. It looked almost too good to be true. Tangy lemon. Puff pastry. That usually forbidden sugar overload. Pause over. I grabbed them.
The four pastries lasted exactly 27 hours. It's taken everything in my will power (and a September heat wave) not to leave the cave and buy more. Given my luck, there won't be any lemon turnovers the next time I visit the store anyway.
I'll probably have to be satisfied with apple turnovers.
SOFTWARE: Chrome Not Good to Go
The first question about Google Chrome arrived via phone Tuesday, September 2, 2008 at 3:45 pm. "Whadidya think?" asked Ken Koyama.
So, here's what I think about Google Chrome Web Browser version 0.2x Beta. It COULD deserve a spot on your desktop, but I'm in no way thinking it will replace Firefox as the browser of choice for quite a while yet. If ever.
First, let's remember that this is a beta product. 0.2 means its a REALLY REALLY early beta, barely more than an alpha. BUT that it is usable. That said, I have one use for it that I think makes it worth having on your desktop. IF you use Google apps like Google Docs, Google Calendar, etc., than what would be more logical than to use Chrome to get to them? I'm sure that Google will have as tight an interface with them, as Microsoft Windows has with Microsoft Office. It will be pushed to the legal limit of how tight, but it will be tight. (A LOT of people think Chrome is the official Office competitor, not a competitor for Firefox and Opera)
Of course, you have to be using Google Apps to make Chrome a real asset. Not everybody does. In fact, after the downtime last month of Google Apps, fewer people are trusting their data to the Google Cloud. As convenient as it is to be able to access your data from any computer any where, if the cloud is down, your data is down with it. Right now, I use Google Apps about as minimally as anyone with an account does. And I don't see it increasing a lot. But if it were to increase, so would my use of Chrome.
Chrome does have a couple of other decent features to at least make it worthwhile investigating. The speed and memory use of the product place it ahead of Firefox (and way ahead of you know what). However long that edge lasts, it still is an edge today. There's also a privacy feature where you can type in URLs and not be tracked during and after, use of the web-site. That's a temporary advantage over Firefox and IE 7. IE 8 beta has it already too. And Firefox will inevitably have an add-in for it, if v3.1, due at the end of 2009 doesn't already have it on the drawing boards.
(This is turning into a much longer post than I thought it would be)
Summing up my reaction to the release of Chrome ... Nice toy right now. A contender in the future. A replacement for Firefox? No. Judge accordingly.
So, here's what I think about Google Chrome Web Browser version 0.2x Beta. It COULD deserve a spot on your desktop, but I'm in no way thinking it will replace Firefox as the browser of choice for quite a while yet. If ever.
First, let's remember that this is a beta product. 0.2 means its a REALLY REALLY early beta, barely more than an alpha. BUT that it is usable. That said, I have one use for it that I think makes it worth having on your desktop. IF you use Google apps like Google Docs, Google Calendar, etc., than what would be more logical than to use Chrome to get to them? I'm sure that Google will have as tight an interface with them, as Microsoft Windows has with Microsoft Office. It will be pushed to the legal limit of how tight, but it will be tight. (A LOT of people think Chrome is the official Office competitor, not a competitor for Firefox and Opera)
Of course, you have to be using Google Apps to make Chrome a real asset. Not everybody does. In fact, after the downtime last month of Google Apps, fewer people are trusting their data to the Google Cloud. As convenient as it is to be able to access your data from any computer any where, if the cloud is down, your data is down with it. Right now, I use Google Apps about as minimally as anyone with an account does. And I don't see it increasing a lot. But if it were to increase, so would my use of Chrome.
Chrome does have a couple of other decent features to at least make it worthwhile investigating. The speed and memory use of the product place it ahead of Firefox (and way ahead of you know what). However long that edge lasts, it still is an edge today. There's also a privacy feature where you can type in URLs and not be tracked during and after, use of the web-site. That's a temporary advantage over Firefox and IE 7. IE 8 beta has it already too. And Firefox will inevitably have an add-in for it, if v3.1, due at the end of 2009 doesn't already have it on the drawing boards.
(This is turning into a much longer post than I thought it would be)
Summing up my reaction to the release of Chrome ... Nice toy right now. A contender in the future. A replacement for Firefox? No. Judge accordingly.
Monday, September 01, 2008
MISC: My First Commercial
Back in the last century, even before I did a couple of commercials while in the radio biz, I did my first commercial while at Bramalea Secondary School. It was a combination of two well-known things, the Surfaris's hit song Wipe Out as the musical background and a riff on Mission Impossible's opening sequence. It went something like this:
Opening bars, complete with maniacal laugh and somebody screaming 'Wipe out!' "This is called Operation Wipe-Out. Your mission, should you accept it, and you will, is to clean up the garbage in the halls and fill the containers. This message will self-destruct in ten seconds."
Okay, it wasn't great. And it probably meant I shouldn't have wasted any time later in life with dallying in advertising. But it was fun to produce and it got a laugh at school (and not much action).
I mention this because I stumbled upon the Surfaris version of it on YouTube while looking for the special politicians' New Rules video mentioned in the last post. I won't reveal just HOW I got from searching for that to the Surfaris, but I got there nonetheless. Here's just ONE of the renditions at YouTube for the song.
It wasn't until years after I got out of school that I realized that this song is NOT the holder of the unique distinction of being the non-instrumental song with the fewest words in the song. It has either one, two, three or seven words in the song, depending on whether you spell the title as Wipeout or Wipe Out and whether you think the laugh has one word (hah) or five words (hah hah hah hah hah). I always came down on the side of one word.
But the song itself, which is covered by the Ventures in another YouTube video, really IS just an instrumental, with the Surfaris adding the word(s) to the opeinng beats.
If you haven't heard it before or not for a long time, it's worth checking out.
Opening bars, complete with maniacal laugh and somebody screaming 'Wipe out!' "This is called Operation Wipe-Out. Your mission, should you accept it, and you will, is to clean up the garbage in the halls and fill the containers. This message will self-destruct in ten seconds."
Okay, it wasn't great. And it probably meant I shouldn't have wasted any time later in life with dallying in advertising. But it was fun to produce and it got a laugh at school (and not much action).
I mention this because I stumbled upon the Surfaris version of it on YouTube while looking for the special politicians' New Rules video mentioned in the last post. I won't reveal just HOW I got from searching for that to the Surfaris, but I got there nonetheless. Here's just ONE of the renditions at YouTube for the song.
It wasn't until years after I got out of school that I realized that this song is NOT the holder of the unique distinction of being the non-instrumental song with the fewest words in the song. It has either one, two, three or seven words in the song, depending on whether you spell the title as Wipeout or Wipe Out and whether you think the laugh has one word (hah) or five words (hah hah hah hah hah). I always came down on the side of one word.
But the song itself, which is covered by the Ventures in another YouTube video, really IS just an instrumental, with the Surfaris adding the word(s) to the opeinng beats.
If you haven't heard it before or not for a long time, it's worth checking out.
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