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Get Carter

Reviews

You know… I’m not exactly sure what the heck I was expecting. I mean, first off let me make clear, I’m not talking about the original, I’m talking the Sylvester Stallone remake. The story is pretty good… a guy finds out his brother has been killed, so he comes home for the first time in a long time to find out who did it. Mickey Rourke is pretty good as one of the bad guys, and Michael Caine makes an appearance (he was the star of the original). It even had one of my favorite B-listers John C. McGinley, and Rachael Leigh Cook… but it was just… ehh. Sly is a pretty good action star, but he just doesn’t have the facial expressions to be able to pull off anything dramatic (except in ‘Copland’, somehow Stallone managed to summon every ounce of acting ability he possessed and pulled off a monster performance in that one). In fact, he looked quite horrible in this… like he’d just had some bad plastic surgery or something, either they intended him to have sacks under his eyes and look both tanned and pasty all at once, or the make-up artist on that flick needs a new career.

In the end, it was moderately entertaining, but if you have a choice, spend the time doing something else…

Playing Hooky

Random Thoughts

Sometimes I just feels good and right to blow off responsibility and do something else. Today I decided that it just wasn’t really worth my time and effort to actually go to work. My boss and our main backend programmer are both on vacation, and my immediate responsibilities involve redesigning a page layout so that its “printer friendly”. So last night, in a burst of brilliance, I turned off my alarm and slept the sleep of the contented soul. I woke up and did my best to do nothing upwardly productive all day long. I played computer games, I browsed the web, I went out for lunch, I went to a bookstore and bought crappy books off the bargain table by authors whom by sheer virtue of their being published I respect but by the fact that they were only published once I figure from their work I can get a taste, perhaps, of how not to write.

Damn, I think when I bought those books I did something that might be considered productive. Crap. Now I’ll have to skip another day in a couple weeks and try again.

There are days when I love being a contract programmer, and confident in the knowledge that no amount of work they can throw at me will ever be more than I can deliver on time.

I Got a New Toy

Pictures

My New Toy… and I took a photo to show it off. I decided I needed an organizer, and a way to write stuff on the go, and a way to get around the firewall at work (bastards and their need to ban everything!)… so I went to Sprint and got myself an Audiovox 6600. Its a phone, and a PDA, and a camera, and its all kinds of neat.

About the only thing it doesn’t do is play MP3s… well, I think it can, but I’ve heard its not so good at them. It runs Windows Pocket XP, even includes a Terminal Services client should I feel the need to do some server maintenance on the go.

There’s a ton of free software out there for it, and I’m sifting through all of it… now I just need a PocketMMO and I’m set!

The Hitchhiker`s Guide

Reviews

I just got back from the theater, and I must say I’m a bit… not underwhelmed… and not overwhelmed. I guess I’m just… whelmed. I read the books long ago, read them twice. And I loved them. The movie captures some of that… and loses some of that… and adds something different. There is an entire plot thread in the movie that isn’t from the book, and some of what I read and pictured in my head came out differently in the film.

It was funny… I laughed quite a few times, but overall I think I laughed more with the book.

Anyway, it was okay, but I’d suggest people wait to rent it or something. Oh, and when you do, or if you see it at the theater, stay through the credits. One of my favorite parts of the book shows up in there… admittedly, less funny on screen than in my imagination.

Custom Signature

Site News

Sort of a neat little add-on I found for WordPress. Dynasignage. It takes the title of the latest post and builds a PNG signature so that you can use it to use on message boards and stuff to try to increase traffic on your site. The author’s version was a bit bland, just a while box, black border and two lines of centered text. So I modified it to fit three lines of text, use a template image with graphic, and allow for a variable to be passed so that the name on the signature can change on a per board basis. For example:

Its pretty cool.

The Station Agent

Reviews

I’m an avid Netflix user, and because of the over 1500 movies I’ve given ratings too, I get a pretty good list of recommendations. That’s when ‘The Station Agent’ popped on to my list.

“When his only friend dies, a young dwarf named Finbar McBride relocates to an abandoned train station in rural New Jersey, intent on living the life of a hermit. But his solitude is soon interrupted by his colorful neighbors, which include a struggling artist coping with the recent death of her young son and a talkative Cuban hot dog vendor.”

It just sounded… well.. weird. But interesting enough to drop it in my list. Curiosity got the better of me, and I bumped it to the top of my list.

The movie is slow. Its pacing is just… well… slow. Its not a bad thing. I never felt like I was looking at my watch, but it was just such a mellow pacing… it was borderline. But it was funny. Not howling in gut ripping laughter funny, but odd funny. In a strange way I felt myself identifying with Fin. He’s a good guy, has his hobbies, and doesn’t want to bother anybody or be bothered… but he gets bothered, and begins to enjoy the company.

In the end, it was a decent enough film, however, I’d be wary to recommend it to anyone I didn’t know really well. Its not for everyone, but I enjoyed it.

World’s Worst Fortune

Random Thoughts

So last night we ordered chinese, General Tso’s Chicken as usual from the place across the street. It was good, as usual. And after the meal, I opened my fortune cookie.

Promote literacy. Buy a box of fortune cookies today.

Wow… Not a fortune, but an advertizement. I fear for what this might be an omen of…

I’m a Switcher

Random Thoughts

No, I haven’t gone from PC to MAC. I’m not that crazy. But after having my car broken into three times in downtown Atlanta, I figured it was time to do something about it. So I’ve switched to public transportation.

Let me begin by saying that I’m not really happy with it. Mostly this is due to pricing and passes. From where I live I have to utilize two systems, I start out in Gwinnette, then transfer to Marta. Both systems sell monthly ‘Unlimited Use’ passes, however, neither accepts the other’s card. And while I get free transfers from one system to the other, it still means I have to carry cash, tickets or tokens on me every day. It also means I can’t take advantage of the monthly discounts.

On the other hand… Not having to actually drive myself to work is nice. I no longer care about all the idiots on the road, its the bus driver’s job, or in the case of Marta I’m on a rail not the street. I get to work more relaxed. And while it takes an hour to get to work, and anywhere from an hour to two hours to get home, that’s time I can spend reading, or writing, or just listening to music absorbed in my own thoughts. Looking over the whole thing, its a pretty sweet deal.

I’m looking to move again, and in my search I’m trying to put myself within reach of Marta, then I’ll be able to use just one system and get a monthly pass. That’ll be cool.

Approaching Perfection

Gaming

I play alot of Freecell at work. Basically, my job is interesting and hard when there is work to do, but there are days when there is no work to do. I take my time when playing Freecell. I try to think out my moves eight or ten moves out, making sure I’m not getting myself blocked up. As such, I have ridiculous winning streaks like forty or fifty wins before I take a loss. The game keeps track of your wins and losses, and tracks the percentage wins. Mathematically, it round up at the half. So when I had 72.5% wins, it displayed 73%.

So I got to thinking… given that I can’t clear my scores (actually, I could probably hack the registry and ‘fix’ it), how many wins will I need in order to achieve 99.5% … or visually, 100%.

This exercise quickly illustrates the ideas of diminishing returns, and approaching infinity. Each win carries less weight on the percentage than the last. So, when I was trying to claw myself over the 70% mark, a handful of wins could put me over the top, while one loss would drop me back a bit. As of Monday afternoon, I have 972 wins and 359 losses. Its just more than 73% true, which makes it a 73% rounded. If I never lose again, I have to win 70,469 more times in order to get 99.5% so that the screen will show me a 100% win ratio. If I manage a similar play rate to the last six months, I should be able to get that in… twenty-nine years.

Perfection is a work in progress.

Hey You!

Random Thoughts

Yeah you! Look, if you have to refer to yourself as a “Good Christian” frequently, there’s a pretty good chance you aren’t one. I’m not saying there aren’t good Christians out there, but they don’t go around telling everyone they are one. In fact, good Christians tend not to really think about it at all, they just are. You know, I realize its hard. The Bible doesn’t mention corporate politics at all. There are no ‘Thou Shalt Not’s for the business world. But just because there aren’t specific words for it written down, that doesn’t mean that lying, cheating and stealing in the name of upward mobility on the corporate ladder is excused. Its still lying, cheating and stealing, and by its nature, if you do it, you aren’t a “Good Christian”. So please, stop saying it.