Moving

Sorry about the lack of updates (not that I need to apologize, or that anyone reads this page other than me) but I've been moving this whole week. I'd have a link to pictures of my new apartment, but Apple's pathetic .Mac servers are down right now and I can't post to my other website. I'll add a link as soon as I can.

So I used to live in Hyde Park, which is in central Austin just north of the UT campus. Quite a beauitful place with lots of big trees and old houses, more families and grad students than right next to campus, but still just minutes from downtown. My old apartment looked kinda like Melrose Place, not that I've ever seen that show, but all the apartments facing in on a tiny court yard with a couple of palm trees and a pool barely big enough to lie down in. The railing were all old wrot iron and very atmospheric. The best part about the place was that everybody knew each other, I felt like I had some family there.

My new place is on the north edge of Austin, right where growth kinda splits in two directions, so I'm reasonably close to everything, yet my huge porch over looks a huge ranch without a building or city light to ruin the view. It's a standard large-complex cookie cutter apartment, otherwise, maybe a little short on the closet space, but it has lots of windows and is generally a huge improvement over my old apartment, which had windows like a dungeon, high and small. A train goes by once a night at about 10, but nothing that is too disturbing. And right across Parmer Lane is my job, Apple, so I'm in no-traffic-heaven.

So I broke down and saw Fahrenheit 9/11...

...a good friend of mine asked me to go, and I felt my ticket won't make Moore that much richer, right?

The movie is pretty much what I expected, but I did go in there with an open mind. It's my money, I wanted to have a good time. If you don't know shit about what Moore is talking about and taking everything as presented, I can see how people could get freaked out. It paints a picture of a "vast right-wing conspiracy" with George W as the goofy evil leader. Moore isn't too subtle or sophisticated in making his points, and the backbone of the film is more emotional than logical or intellectual. I felt like I was watching a hard-core conspiracy film, and wondered if true democrats were laughing at the simplicity of the whole thing. The film definitely wears its opinion on its sleeve, the sleeve of a gaudy, fucked up multicolor jumper suit from a retirement community in Vegas.

The best moments are when Moore drives around Washington in an ice cream truck reading the Patriot Act from a loud-speaker, or the look on Senators' faces when he asked them to send their children to fight in Iraq. The low points are so bad they're funny, like when Moore shows Iraq children flying kites in Baghdad before our invasion.

I don't believe that Moore is so stupid as to believe everything he says in the film. I think he knows what corners he is cutting, but is willing to cut them "for a greater good," fighting fire with fire, so to speak. I'm sorry, but dishonest politics taints even the best causes.

Lance Wins Again!

The man is incredible. He goes down in history as the only person to win the Tour de France 6 times, and in a row at that. Bike sales to fat software engineers skyrocket in Austin. France reluctantly change "Freedom Cheese" back to its original name in honor of the Texan.

Take a burn on Politics to nulify that after-lunch coma

It seems politics is the only exciting thing these days, now that's it's been elevated to the level of Jerry Springer...
-Planned Parenthood and Yahoo(wtf?) are selling pro-choice t-shirts in "cute" colors with catchy slogans. I want one.

-Bin Laden votes for Kerry? No way! He is voting for Bush, the man who is trying to kill him.
-Spy games in the Pentagon. Check out who planted the bugs.
-USA Today... Ann Coutler hired to cover Democratic Convention, Michael Moore hired to cover Republican Convention. Cats and Dogs, sleeping together. Dear God, Coutler's article is bad. I can't wait to see if Moore tries to out-do her.
-The 9-11 Commission report is a pretty good read.
-Israelis Form Human Chain Across Gaza, sing "I'd like to buy the world a Coke"...

News of the weird

-Are you ready to rock?The KISS Platinum Visa® card.
-Man Sues McDonald's Over Lack of Warning Against Forceful Burger Eye Insertion. From the sprightly Michigan every three weekly.
-More McDonald's. Hammurder discontinued. Guess they gotta up the ante every few years.
-an interesting Ebay seller, "Profiles in History", who sells all kinds of strange antiques.
-Breast Implants for Soldiers. The doctors need someone to practice on, but what do breast implants have to do with battlefield medicine?
-No kidding! You mean alien abductees aren't always right? Actually, the article itself doesn't use very good logic.
-Lightning strike makes man feel 100 years younger.
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Flash Games

Flash is a tremendous... "force" on the internet. The things people are doing with it is well beyond what Flash was originally created for. Take these games for instance...

-The Chasm, one of the most interesting I've played lately. An old fashioned adventure/puzzler.
-Lego Quest for the Golden Dragon.
-an extremely simple Frogger-like game.
-Penguin Ninja.
-Not a flash game, but still fun as hell. Freedom or Evil?
-Look! Bubbles!
-Crazy (minature) Golf. Soon all games will be free and fun.

Welcome to my world

here's an emergency call of a women who locked herself into her car. It's a hoax, but still funny.

Get Berries. Throw Baby.

The Homestarr boys are always at their best when they make fun of old video games. I think you can actually see a picture of the brothers in this one, too! Can one peasant wearing short pants save the countryside from certain burnination? You decide!

NiN drives your id

Here is a link to tweaker who worked on the soundtrack to Doom 3 after Trent Reznor dropped out :-( Considering tweaker is an ex-NiN, the apple hasn't fallen far from the tree. Reznor did the soundtrack/fx for Quake, which I consider some of the best sound to ever grace a computer game. The music still creeps me out, and the fx still sound fresh and in your face, considering they have been recycled for every Quake game of the last 8 years!

Tweaker's blog has got some nice songs on it, including a hard version of weezer's hash pipe. The Doom 3 theme song kinda disappointed me, it was a little bit too "ordinary" from all the other atmospheric hard metal out there.

UPDATED: Here is Reznor's take on why he didn't do the sound work on Doom 3. Sounds like it would have been incredible. I blame id for the fuck up, although I have no reason for it, just a gut feeling.

Doom 3 in 3 weeks!

In honor of Doom 3's impending release, you might want to check up on Gamespy's expose on Doom's 10th Anniversiry. Also check out Masters of Doom, a great book on the minds behind the game.

Wha-Gow!

Check it! Bollywood Funk!

This jackass is selling a hip-hop necklace made out of a motherboard on ebay.

It's Official: Mac Users Smarter than Windows Users

At least when it comes to writing level, Mac Users are generally smarter than Windows users.

New PC!

Just built an insanely powerful PC. Yeah, I'm an Apple guy, and my Powerbook is still the best computer I've ever owned and I still spend 90% of my computing time on my Mac, but a PC comes in handy, too, and I live in the real world. It's a dual Opteron 2.2 Ghz CPUs with 1 GB registered DDR PC2700 ram, Radeon 9800 Pro 128, on an MSI K8T Master2 motherboard. Oh, running Windows XP, which sucks.

I just ran 3dMark, and got 5984, which is about 1000 above a single processor computer with the same video card.. In the Far Cry demo, at 1280x1024 with everything set to max detail, I get 45-50 fps, almost double a single processor. I'll run tests on Metal of Honor, Halo, UT 2004, and Quake 3 later today, come back for the numbers. I'm sticking to my Mac for non-game stuff, so there.

While I am looking forward to Doom 3 and Half-Life 2, this machine will ultimately be a Home Theater PC with ATI's HDTV Wonder card, giving me Tivo functionality and an online channel guide (press a button and record all the episodes of South Park, for example), resolution doubler to bring DVDs up to 1080p (about 8 times the detail currently in DVDs) and a High Definition channel receiver. Eventually I'll buy 2 serial ATA 250GB hard drives and stripe them, plus a new case with ultra quiet fans, but that $$$$$ I don't have at the moment. Not that I watch that much TV, or even own an HDTV... come to think of it, I'm not entirely sure why I built this thing.

History of Spiderman

It's not what you think, but a tour of the '67 Spiderman cartoon.

Work for Google

Wanna get a job at Google, before they go public? Take the test.

he-he

Anime of a different tear. Little asian kids beating drums with their heads.

Misc Science for the wee-hours

ZZZ News has a cool retrospect on zepplins.

Also, Richard Buckminster Fuller is getting a fitting tribute on a postage stamp and from Wired.com.

Speaking of the USPS, don't forget to check up on my neighbor Lance Armstrong's progress in the Tour de France as we move into Phase 2. The riders are heading into the mountains, were the real Tour begins. I find the strategy on the Tour fascinating.

Bethesda to create Fallout 3

This is the biggest news for RPG fans in a long time.

This Land is Your Land

A hilarious political cartoon of Bush and Kerry singing "This Land is Your Land". Clinton's brief appearance is the funniest. Also, check out this love fest between Kerry and his new running mate, John Edwards. Kinda mirrors the recent Drudge headline, CAN'T KEEP HANDS OFF EACH OTHER.

Also saw a great Spiderman stop-motion animation made entirely with legos over at www.spiteyourface.com. It's amazing what kids can do these days, I tell you. They probably used Boinx's iStopMotion.

Looks like Moore wants your to download his film. At least he is consistant.

Thanks to Sassan and Me for the web links. Sassan is another blogger on Blogspot who thinks a lot like me.

Ode to Stick Figures

All of these toons feature stick figures of some sort.
- a cute little stick figure romance, Paper Wars.
- I used to draw little cartoons like Battlefield IV in middle school, with little dudes blowing each other up and lots of blood everywhere. Here's another by the same guy.
- a Max Payne tribute.
- caveman stick figure called Grok - nice artistry!
- Pencilmation, very cute and funny, ok for kids.
- a Matrix tribute by Xiao Xiao I hadn't seen yet, a commerical for Heineken. BTW, Xiao Xiao is the guy that started the whole stick figure craze.
- I really liked "I Love Death" a lot, it has nice graphic design and story. The entire website for One Eye Films is amazingly creative.

More on Moore

It's all a shell game.

The integrity of Fahrenheit 9/11 is being questioned moore and moore by professional publications, leftist stalwarts such as Time Magazine and MSNBC. The most damning is the Washington Post column by far-left liberal Richard Cohen. Of course Fox News made some attacks on the film, too, but we expected that, didn't we? To his credit, Moore did post a very detailed listing of all his references for the film, the "War room" but this is hardly convincing. A careful reading of these sources is probably better than watching the film itself, because you can absorb the facts without the rollercoaster of Moore's cuts and comments. Half of his resources are conspiracy theory books or people like Arther Clarke, hardly a solid foundation for Moore's ideas. I mean, come on, most Americans already know how easily people can manipulate video and skew things to their political view. Why give Moore a free pass just because you don't like Bush?

I love talking to people who really liked Fahrenheit, who got Moore's message, because they can't really tell you what that message was. Time compared this movie to The Passion of the Christ because both movies are preaching to the choir; neither are going to convice anyone skeptical of their view, instead they present an emotional re-enforcement to an established base. Moore doesn't bother to present an argument with any kind of logical coherent backbone, he just throws things buckshot at the audience and lets the outrage ellipse the rationality. Typical media overcompensation for a lack of real comprehension, when you have no idea what you are talking about, accuse the government of absolutely everything and when you get something right you look like a genius!

My favorite deconstruction of Moore's assertions is from the great website Snopes.com, which goes into great detail in explaining the whole Saudis-leaving-in-secrecy thing that opens the trailer. It gives the correct amount of attention this complicated subject deserves. The political parties might have you think it's left vs. right,

In the end, my frustration isn't about Michael Moore at all, but how the media so easily manipulates its audience. Of course its about money, duh! Do you think Kerry and Edwards, a billionare and a claims lawyer, are going to be any different? My father is a doctor and he is going to be screwed by either ticket. In researching the facts about Bush, you'll find he has shared appointments on corporate boards with with his so-called enemies from the Democratic party. The Carlyle Group which Moore investigates so vigorously being a prime example since it was in fact co-founded by David Rubenstein, a domestic policy advisor to Jimmy Carter, and Bush served with many Clinton-era democrats. It's a lonely at the top, and the leaders of the world all know each other and protect each other. All Moore is doing is helping one group of rich people attack another group. I know the rich aren't looking out for my interests, put its the press, that great Hearstian institution that claims to be a servant of the people, that's what really scares me.

But I must admit, I wanted to see the film just from the clips in the trailer. Bush's comments on the golf course is priceless.

Daddy Was a Street Corner

Engrish is one of the funniest sites I have ever enjoyed.

Things My Girlfriend and I have Argued About... dot com

Not, not my girlfriend, it's the name of a website. Remember that old internet standard, Psycho Ex-Girlfriend? That one turned out to be just an internet hoax for the pr0n industry, But who knows about this one. It kinda reminds me of the wedding dress guy who also embelished his misery for the entertained of the masses.

Another trip around the web

Time Magazine has a great piece on their 50 favorite websites, it's worth checking out. Some of my favorites (of their favorites) are:
-the fly guy
-Mobissimo, a search engine for plane tickets
-a google search for recipes
-Craigslist.org, a true online community
-a website for giving stuff away, free. Austin has a huge section!
-the place for iPod lovin'
-a site for aspiring filmmakers, Triggerstreet. Don't know it it's any good, though.
-Meetup.com
-my new favorite movie review site
-website for international literature
-Factcheck.org
-my new favorite news site, Google News, not because it is non-biased, but because it gets you in touch with so many other sites
-hot site to scan lots of blogs