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Chain Genius

2007-07-10

I had a thought, which I'm finding difficult to complete. It goes something like this.

My partner's father is not very good with computers. I don't think he really gets them, so he often will ask my partner for help with the computer. Now, my partner's no whiz-kid with computers, so whenever she has a crazy problem she'll ask me to fix it. I'm pretty good with computers - I work with them all day every day. However, when I can't answer …

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Transformers, or How I Learned to Forgive Michael Bay and love Summer Blockbusters

2007-07-06

I went to see Transformers on Wednesday night. Yes, that's right. Opening night. If there's one thing I hate about movies in the theatre, it's seeing them on opening night. You're right in there with the unwashed masses (read: teenagers) that don't seem to get movies at the same level that I do. You're right, I'm being pretentious. It's on purpose, and it's mildly sarcastic. Mildly, because it's mostly true. (kidding!)

Man, do …

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Mr. Brooks

2007-06-26

I saw Mr. Brooks a short while ago and I was surprised. Why surprise, you ask? Well, let's do a quick overview:

Writer / Director Bruce A. Evans

Pros: Screenplay of Stand By Me. Cons: Every other movie he's been affiliated with (Cutthroat Island, Jungle 2 Jungle, Kuffs, Assassins, etc.)

Leading Man Kevin Costner

Pros: Actually a pretty …

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On the Joys of Uninterruptable Power

2007-06-18

Wait, that is a misleading or possibly even ironic title for this post, since I do not have a UPS. The fallout from this, unfortunately, is the complete pooching of my work desktop. I guess I'm getting ahead of myself.

On Friday afternoon, near the end of the day, I made a grievous error. I decided to upgrade my system from Ubuntu 6.10 to 7.04. There had been a couple of brown-outs over the course of the day, but I didn't think…

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Aphoenix Dot CA Looks Different!

2007-05-22

Well, I changed up how aphoenix.ca is looking. I'm moderately happy with the overall effect, though I reserve the right to revert to the old look at any time. I'm already cooking up a scheme for the next look and I'm getting ready to start posting in my photoblog again (the photos are now going to be integrated into this part of the blog). On the topic of the photoblog - I just bought a new camera. It's a

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Pandora has forsaken me

2007-05-16

Yesterday I got an email from Tim Westergen, the Founder of Pandora.com. I am now mildly upset, because Pandora has started filtering by IP addresses so that people outside of the United States are unable to listen to their service. Previously, they filtered by asking your Zip Code (which I'm sure everyone outside of the US entered as "90210"), but they've beefed up their security, I guess. The le…

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If a picture's worth 1000 words, then why can't I eat you?

2007-05-14

We have often heard the old saw, "A picture is worth a thousand words." Is that really true? Here are a few points to consider.

We see at about 22 - 24 fps. Each individual frame that we see can be considered to be a picture. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then we're taking in 22,000 to 24,000 words per second.

  • A movie is something you watch, and almost flawless (for the purpose of being seen, no…

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This Blog and Life

2007-05-11

This blog is quickly falling by the wayside because of life. There's a number of updates and upgrades I want to make to it:

  • Complete overhaul to the theme - let's face it, this isn't the most visually stunning blog in the world. I did this CSS as an interesting exercise to make a 2-column extremely liquid layout. Test it out - change the text size, and the pagination all remains the same. Whoop-de-doo. I'm likely going to stay wit…

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Windows™, Windows™, Windows™ (and VirtualBox)

2007-04-30

So a while ago, I leaped into Ubuntu, and I haven't really looked back very much. I mean - sure, I use Windows™ to play games, inasmuch as I play games anymore, and I've used Media Center™ a bit, but not very much. At work, I've been using Ubuntu Edgy Eft almost exclusively (with a mind to update to Feisty Fawn soon), but I find that I need to do more and more testing in a Windows™ environment. On my laptop, I dual boot, but as my laptop is my…

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Pachelbel Is The Devil

2007-04-23

Every mean thing I've ever wanted to say about Pachelbel's Canon in D is said much better in this YouTube clip from Rob Paravonian.

The Video formerly found here, is still available from YouTube.

I would happily write more, but Paravonian says everything worth saying. Of note: I have made several of these jokes before but I was never able to string them all together like this guy…

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