Standing On Boxes

Yes!

Kathryn Bigelow got the Best Director Oscar for The Hurt Locker! (Okay, the movie got some other awards besides that, including Best Picture, but this was the big one.)

And, apparently causing heads to explode all over the movie-criticism websites, Sandra Bullock won Best Actress. Since she beat out both Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep (and the other 2 actresses are too “new” to have a following in Hollywood) – that sounds like the “It was her turn” award vote that got her it.

And a Star Trek movie actually got an  award (one of the technical ones) and a Pixar movie won Best Animation (again.).

And I missed the new iPad commercial that played right before that Pixar award. Darn. (And the Apple Hate drenched all the tech blog-sites seconds later. Time to stop reading them I think.)

Instead of watching the Oscars… I thought I would watch something else. And what does one watch on “Oscar Weekend” ? How about a Hayao Miyazaki film marathon this weekend? I have seven of his movies on DVD. Not sure of the order I’ll watch them in. Or if I’ll watch them dubbed or subbed.

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[Day 1]

Watched/watching: Kiki’s Delivery Service (subbed)

Kiki was only thirteen. Isn’t that a bit young to be thrown out of the house and sent to figure out life?

Things she delivers (not at all inclusive)

• A birdcage with a stuffed cat (that looks like JiJi, her black cat) in it.
• A heavy box.
• Herring and pumpkin pie? Uh… yum?

Princess Mononoke (dubbed)

Hadn’t watched this one in a long time. I’d forgotten how gory it is. And how much I don’t like Billy Bob Thorton’s voice. But otherwise the movie was mostly good though Ashitaka was annoyingly naive I think.

Spirited Away (dubbed) (The T and I actually saw this one for the first time in a movie theater in Hanover, NH back when it first came out.)

Poor Chihiro (she’s ten.). She has to rescue her parents.

[Day 2]

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (dubbed)(1984? It doesn’t feel that old.”)

Post-environmental apocalypse tale. With Nausicaä, another female main character. And huge insects.

Howl’s Moving Castle (dubbed)

Another Miyazaki female protagonist, Sophie is cursed. (Based on a novel by Diana Wynne Jones. The wiki entry details the differences. And the entry on the book includes info on the sequels.)

Poor Sophie. She meets the Wizard Howl and then attracts the attention of an evil witch, who turns her into an old crone so she won’t be competition for Howl. It’s a Miyazaki film… so we know she’ll have a happy ending. Eventually.

Hmm… we never really find out how the spell on Sophie was broken (It seems to be one of those spells where she’s herself if she’s the only person in the room but as soon as she thinks she isn’t alone — zap — old crone-ish. But by the end she’s back to herself — but with grey hair.

Castle in the Sky (dubbed)

In Search of Laputa, an island in the sky. We have pirates! And they’re not really the bad guys. And then there are robots.

Sheeta is the main female protagonist. One of the weaker such in the Miyazaki movies I’ve watched so far. She’s mostly just along for the ride IMHO. Pazu (the boy whose arms she falls into (literally))  is more the main character even as they travel together.

Ponyo (dubbed)

The story of a Magical Fish girl (Ponyo) and her boy (Sōsuke (he’s 5)). Her father, a magician who lives in the sea, doesn’t take it well.

Not the best movie he’s made but definitely good, if a bit more Disney-ish than I like at the beginning.

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So, do I go find the other Miyazaki movies and watch those for Day 3 (next weekend):

The Castle of Cagliostro – a pre-Studio Ghibli Lupin III movie (I’m not really a Lupin III fan.)

Poco Rosso – Not sure about this one.

My Neighbor Totoro – that actually sounds interesting.

Maybe Totoro and a couple other non-Miyazaki Ghibli films?

I only saw two movies in a theater this past year. And neither of them are nominated for an Oscar. So, I probably won’t both watching the ‘Academy Awards’ on Sunday.

I’m probably the only person in America who hasn’t seen “Avatar” yet. And am in no hurry to see it.

I do think it would be great if Kathryn Bigelow won Best Director for her movie The Hurt Locker but other than that, I don’t really care.

And once again, we’re reminded that the “Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts, and Sciences” is a very exclusive club of approximately 6,000 people who are involved in movie making. So why do we care what these very few people think about movies? (I’m thinking the “Tomato Meter” at Rotten Tomatoes.Com is a better “judge” of movie quality.)

It’s by invite only (of existing members ) and is “limited to those who have achieved distinction in the arts and sciences of motion pictures.” (And winning an Oscar? Not a guaranteed “in”)

Really? Keira Knightley has “achieved distinction” ? How exactly? By appearing in a Disney movie or three that made billions?  Or was it that movie about King Arthur. (They don’t list every member on their website. Just a small, small sample. Of which she’s one. Not to disparage her talent but she’s just one of dozens of actresses of similar talent her age making movies right now.).

Not sure where THAT one came from. Maybe all those Valentines Day “Pajama-gram” commercials that are dueling those annoying Valentines Day teddybear commercials on TV right now?

It sounds like a cool title for a fic, actually.

Now I just need a story to go with it.

Valentines Day. Teddybears. TV commercials.

Need I say more?

Argh!

I pay taxes for a piece of the “ancestral homelands” that I inherited in another state. Nothing impressive. Just a bunch of rocks and trees. My car is worth more.

The taxes come at different times in the year – school taxes and state property taxes. School taxes were due Feb. 2nd this year (for those of us who like to pay ‘in full’). But I thought it would get there late so I sent in the payment + interest (the tax bill had that info in it.)

And I JUST got it back. With a note from the tax collector saying she couldn’t take it because it was more that the exact amount owed. Argh. Apparently, it wasn’t received late.

She couldn’t keep it for a day or two and save me a stamp?

Because now it IS late and the amount I originally sent is now the correct amount. I just hope she takes it this time so I don’t have to make arrangements for it to be payed in person.

OS X 10.* has a spelling checker built in. Although some programs have their own, most word processors/text editors in OS X use the built-in spelling check. Why not, Apple makes it easy. And in programs like web browsers you can have it spell check the contents of text boxes (Firefox on other platforms like Windows will do the same thing but I believe it has it’s own spelling checker).

You can configure OS X to use multiple spelling dictionaries. In different languages supported by OS X and user supplied dictionaries.

Sounds great. And it mostly works.

Learned something today. That “mostly” has limits.

I do most of my fic writing using a text editor called TextWrangler. Sort of a baby/lite version of BBEdit. Quite a few features considering the cost (free). For straight writing on a Mac? I think it’s one of the best.

If I want to use a “real” word processor (with fancy page formatting, etc.) I have Pages, a part of iWork. (I don’t use Pages very often yet. (Might change if I buy an iPad.) I rarely need a word processor — when I do I’m usually at work and I use MS Word.). I’ve tried assorted versions of Open Office but it just feels “clumsy” to me.

So… I have TextWrangler set to spell-check as I type. It normally works well. Speeds up the misspelled word finding. Doesn’t help with homophones, or other grammar issues. Or wrong words caused by typing errors. (e.g. In a fic  I used ‘Hoe’ instead of ‘How’ in a sentence.)

It was pointed out to me the other day, that I spelled a word wrong – I spelled ‘panicking’ without the ‘k’. I corrected it and then tried to figure out why TextWrangler didn’t flag it as misspelled (Because it was acting as if it were correctly spelled and I couldn’t convince it otherwise. But if I looked for a definition for it in the dictionary, there wasn’t one.).

So, I stuffed ‘panicing’ into Pages and it correctly told me it was misspelled.

So then I played around with the spelling settings in OS X. And noticed that it was configured to use a LOT more dictionaries than I remember setting. Not just English. But also Russian, Germany, Polish, Japanese, etc. And I started turning off dictionaries. And found the problem.

When Dutch was one of the languages being used for spell checking, TextWrangler accepts ‘panicing’ but Pages doesn’t.  (Not sure if panicing is the actual spelling of a Dutch word.)But they both use the same dictionary setting, so how’d it happen? No idea but there must be something different in how they actually use the dictionaries. Maybe they use them in a different order?

No idea, but at least it is fixed now.

Well, I don’t quite qualify for AARP yet but I think I’m ready for a mid-life crisis.

Now I just need to win the lottery so I can afford all the trappings. (I think I’m supposed to go out and buy a $200K car? And get a posse of sexy young things half my age to spend all my (non-existent) money? And go find a beach somewhere?)

If one were to believe the Travel Channel and FoodTV channel (US Cable), every restaurant in the US has some speciality that leads to over eating in some eating “challenge”. Usually eat it all (whatever “it” is) and it’s free!

“It fills you up!”

Largest burger in the world ? There’s one of those in every state (Usually a 6-10lb burger. With toppings)

Hottest chicken wings in the US? Every large college town seems to have one of those now.

Largest burrito/taco? Must be one in every state in the Southwest US.

Biggest steak? We’ve got ‘em out there also.

Biggest bowl of Soup X? That too.

Desserts? Those also.

The things that bug me about this? Besides there being a tv show devoted to this idea?

The peasants/people who appear on these tv shows, trying to eat a week’s worth of food (a month’s worth if you’re a farmer in China) in an hour? They seem so proud of their gluttony (That’s a Biblical/Classical term for the non-Christians out there.). They don’t seem to care how foolish they look stuffing their faces on camera.

Somehow, each show devoted to this topic always, always ends up in some college town where a bunch of frat-boy-esque students try to prove their testosterone level by eating as many extremely hot (in a jalapeno kind of way.) chicken wings as they can stand. (Or something else equally inedible.) With their “friends” cheering them on. It isn’t pretty.

I guess it could be worse. They could have contests to see who can drink the most $1,000 bottles of scotch in one sitting.

Can you tell I don’t find conspicuous consumption like this (or any) endearing?

One thing I haven’t seen mentioned yet in all the iPad uproar is the different media distribution models used by Apple for their media devices (ie. iPods, iPhones, and Macs) versus Amazon’s with the Kindle.

Kindle

If I buy a book from Amazon for “my” Kindle, AFAIK, that book is licensed to run on THAT Kindle.  My book. My Kindle. My Amazon Kindle account. (There’s an iPhone Kindle app but it is still tied to MY iPhone, and MY Amazon-Kindle account. Amazon assumes that I’m the person using both and that I don’t use them at the same time — I believe it tracks usage somewhere in the Amazon ‘cloud’ so that the current page in a Kindle book is also the current page in the Kindle app.)

So… 1 person. 1 copy. If someone else in your house has a kindle, they have to pay for their books separately.

Apple

Now let’s look at how Apple does media on the iTunes store (iTS) (I’m making the wild assumption that they’ll follow the same model for their iBookstore.)

The center of your iPod “digital media lifestyle” is your desktop (PC or Mac). You authorize your computer to work with your AppleID and the iTS so you can purchase media from iTS with it. I believe you can tie up to 3 desktops to a single AppleID/iTunes store account. (It’s at least three.)

Now for the fun part…

If you have multiple iPod users in your household, they can EACH sync their iPods with the same computer (or another computer attached to the same AppleID). And they each have their own sync configs. And they could ALL listen to/watch the same media at the same time.

So… how would I set that up for a family? (The simple version)

1. Create an AppleID for the household (I would also get a credit card JUST for that purpose).

2. “Attach” it to a “family computer” (A Mac mini would do it. Just make sure it has a large hard drive and at least one external drive to back things up to.).

3. Everyone uses that machine to download/purchase music.

4. Everyone in the family syncs their iPods to that machine. Some will want to sync it manually. Some not. But they can share music/media this way.

So, with Apple and the iTS, you end up with 1 copy per household, not per person.

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Have to wonder what the media people (Publishers, music industry, movie industry, etc.) think about this media distribution model.

Finally got around to moving the last fic  The Two here. (Unless I missed one.)

Some parts of it are in dire need of revision. Someday. After I finish it. Not sure when that’ll be but the only thing I’ve done to it in the last 4 years is revise the first 3 parts. So… it could be a while.

I was thinking about my first programming experience this morning while I was getting ready for work.

And then things went meta and I started thinking about HOW I got to thinking about that in the first place. So bear with me for a moment. (I’m not going to explain all of the tech things I mention along the way. Sorry. There’s a google for that.)

Read More >>

{I need a lolcat for this!}

So, Steve Jobs announces (finally) the mythical Apple tablet device. I’m not going to go over the features (has or missing). Every tech blog on the planet has details or you can even go to the official Apple iPad website

Other than the name… iPad? Really? … I actually want one. I’ve been waiting for a tablet for ME (and not all the jealous tech-nerds that hang out in the tech blog comment sections (they already HATE the iPad with a seething passion – and it’s only been half a day.)) and this is the first thing since a Newton MessagePad (I’ve got one of those in a box somewhere) to come close.

Let’s get the low-hanging fruit negatives out of the way first:

1. 1. I wanted something a little smaller. The iPad 1.0 is slightly smaller than a pad of paper. I was hoping for a more portable trade paperback size.
2. To get GPS you have to get the more expensive model ($130 more) (actually AGPS (Assisted GPS) — I hope it works without a data plan! Some AGPS devices apparently require a network connection to work. I’m pretty sure I have a couple apps on my iPhone that use GPS even without a 3G connection.)
3. Not enough details available on how some things work (I went browsing through the iPhone OS 3.2 SDK docs but couldn’t find what I wanted to know. (Is it violating the 3.2 SDK NDA to even admit I have a (legal) copy of it? Hmm..))

Things that have sold me on it — in no special order.

• 3G potential – with no AT&T contract required (Already have that because of the iPhone) – even if I don’t use it.
• iWork
• Support for iPhone apps
• Bluetooth keyboard support
• iBook app supports ePub (Here’s hoping it can read non-Apple/iTunes Store procured eBooks. If Not there’s always Stanza and eReader)
• Grown Up (!!) versions of the standard iPhone apps (email, notepad, calendar, etc.)

I do wonder about the “Camera Kit” – it includes a USB-iPod Dock adapter so you can plug your camera directly into the iPad. Does that mean you can plug in other devices that have USB based storage in the same format? (Wild guess — the only app that can access that “mode” is the one that lets you import photos from the camera.)

{Pause while I watch the recording of the event — MUCH better info than I got from the live-blog I read earlier.}

Magical/Intimate – key words from Steve Jobs about the iPad.

But let me mention THE app demoed today that really sold  me on the potential of the iPad: Brushes (It’s an app for artists). This kind of app pushes the iPad beyond being a media consumer/device into being a device to create with.

It’s not just a mobile web browser.

So, watching a show on one of the History channels. An actual historical discussion of the historical background behind the current belief in the AntiChrist (aka Is the Book of Revelations real?) and prophecy.

(Of course, I say that because it fits my own beliefs about such things. I prefer fact based discussions of religion.)

So… they’ve just gotten to the part where they explain that the current belief in the Anti-Christ is actually based on the ideas of a British traveling preacher from the 19th century that really have no basis in the Christian bible. (Sounds like it’s all just the Christian variety of conspiracy theorists.)

And at that point there’s a 60+ second commercial for some kind of fancy crystal cross for people to buy as a gift – for baptisms, confirmations, etc. and to remind people of their religion.

Sure, that kind of thing happens a lot. Commercials targeting an audience based on the content of a tv show isn’t new. Google does it on the internet even. But when it’s a late night tv show? They almost always seem to get it wrong. The commercials are usually aimed at the people who WOULDN’T watch a show like that. Or who would have changed the channel as soon as they discovered it wasn’t a fanboyish show about their favorite religious topic (As rare as those might be.)

I need to spend some time revamping/revising my list of recommended/favorite fics and fic writers. Not today, but soon.

I was just rereading Mhalachai’s crossover fic Agent Afloat Atlantis (A Stargate Atlantis/NCIS crossover centered around Ziva) — which is only better than my favorite Mhalachai fic Physics of the Spin (Rory Gilmore goes to Atlantis) because it is finished.

And as I was reading it, I tried to figure out why I like it so much and why is her writing so much better than mine?

And I think I figured it out. Her characters (Okay – borrowed characters)  move/float inside of lyrical descriptions of movement and scenery.  (Couldn’t find an example, now that I want one.) The characters in her stories don’t just talk. They live in worlds that have color and movement and sound.

Reading one of her stories? It isn’t reading in the pedestrian sense of slogging through piles of words. It’s reading like listening to the music of the words. Or something like that.