Radical Hive

I use Askimet for spam protection, and once a week I go in and read what the Spam Kings of the interwebs are saying about me.  They’re often quite fun, but I always feel bad that these poor Spam Bots get no love, so in an effort to make myself feel better about…myself, I have decided to respond to some of the thoughtful comments of these dear Spam Lords (and hopefully invite some commenting from you lurkers out there who are reading even as I speak…err, write). Read the rest of this entry »

Hellboy II The Golden Army

The first Hellboy movie was a good film.  It had spectacular visuals, it had a good protagonist, it had cool villians, and it told a decent story.

It wasn’t great though.  For all of the “good stuff” about it, there was something missing.  I feel this way with all of Del Toro’s movies (although Pan’s Labirynth was the closest he’s come to having a complete film).  There’s something missing, and I can’t quite put my finger on exactly what it is that would take his stuff to the next level.  That’s why the French call that certain something a “je ne sais quoi”.

The same is true with this movie.  It was good, but it just wasn’t great.  It’s a case of the sum of the parts not equaling up to the whole. Read the rest of this entry »

The Dark Knight

So with The Dark Knight currently at $400 million in 18 days, it’s well on the way to the all time box office record (currently held by James Cameron’s Titanic at 600 million), it is inevitable that a third installment will be filmed.  What’s in question right now is whether or not Christopher Nolan will be at the helm.  If I were Warner Brothers I think I’d dump the proverbial semi-truck of cash to get him back.

Christian Bale has been quoted as saying that Nolan has a theme for the next movie, and since his themes always follow his villains, it’s time to find out who the baddie will be. Read the rest of this entry »

Not available in stores...the WordPress Plugin Bar

It’s Web Design Wednesdays, and this week I’m going to focus on WordPress.

I’ve been using WordPress for a few months now, and I’ve pretty much settled on a few plugins that I love and which will be on my “default install” for any other sites I make.  There are a couple of plugins on this list that I’m not currently using, but I have them earmarked for other sites.

There are two specific examples; I’m not posting comics here, so there’s not much sense for the ComicPress plugin.  I’m not selling stuff, so there’s not much sense in having the WP eCommerce plugin installed, but they’re both really cool plugins that I’ve played with. Read the rest of this entry »

Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2

Wow…talk about a busy weekend.  Not only did we have a garage sale, do lunch with friends, see Grandma and Grandpa, have Char’s sister over, put in a couple of steps, go shopping for some cool stuff, go to Storybook Gardens and visit Rib Fest…TWICE, but I also got some video gaming in this weekend.

Now THAT’s how you have a weekend! Read the rest of this entry »

This is Buck. He's big, and he's a bunny!

Big Buck Bunny is a short developed by The Blender Institute, which is part of the Blender Foundation, a non-profit organization which develops the Open Source 3D video application Blender.

From the site:

Big Buck Bunny tells the story of a giant rabbit with a heart bigger than himself. When one sunny day three rodents rudely harass him, something snaps… and the rabbit ain’t no bunny anymore! In the typical cartoon tradition he prepares the nasty rodents a comical revenge. Read the rest of this entry »

The Last Lecture's Randy Pausch

Randy Pausch the computer science professor who delivered a very moving final lecture at Carnegie Melon passed away last week after a short but fierce battle with cancer. He was 47.

His lecture is incredibly inspiring, here’s a guy who at the time was told he had six months to live (he managed to extend that to nine). He wasn’t maudlin or depressing, but instead he stressed the importance of achieving your dreams.

Between this, and “The Bucket List”, I’ve decided to write my “things to do before I die” list, and start crossing them off. Read the rest of this entry »

The Windows Vista Media Center interface

My media center box, the unit which does all of my TV recording and all that good stuff, finally gave up the ghost this week.  Early Wednesday morning we had a big storm which flickered our power.  When I got home last night I decided to see what the Media Center had recorded recently.  When I powered it up, I got a little surprise.  Nothing, no familliar “whirr”, no little “buzz, click wizz”, nothing.  I took it apart and saw that the motherboard was getting some power, but something wasn’t working.

So the problem might be the power supply, it could be the CPU, it might even be the motherboard, or a bad RAM stick.  Who knows for sure?

Last night I quickly priced out how much it would cost me to replace one or more of those items, and I came to a sad realization.

No iPhone for me.  Read the rest of this entry »

I read a lot of websites to keep up on all of my geek news, but luckily the web is filled with “internet celebrities” who have helped shape and inform my “internet worldview”. It’s interesting that as I was compiling this list I realized that everyone who’s on this list is either self employed, or has created their own start-up. What does that say about me?

I think it might indicate that I’m a cowardly entrepreneur. Read the rest of this entry »

This is something new I’m going to try. Website Wednesdays, I’m going to try to write a bi-weekly column on websites and web usability every other Wednesday where I’ll talk about some of the challenges in developing modern websites.

I thought of a half dozen catchy titles for this post, but really it comes down to one thing. Usability. A usable website is a good website. The more usable your website, the more better a user’s experience will be with it, and the more successful it will be in the long run. Read the rest of this entry »