Knots tied

I hear that congratulations are due to friend and former-coworker, Lisa Mooty. Formerly Mooty?

Lisa and I worked together at MindSpring/EarthLink and were both managers for a while. I wandered off to Air2Web and Lisa eventually found her way to cBeyond, where she later met her new husband.

I certainly wish The Bride & Groom a life of happiness and fulfillment. Long may their love last.

And good luck in D.C., Lisa. Maybe you can get our country out of this rut? You have my vote!

Checking them off

Cold. Rainy. Overcast. The perfect day to chew through some of my short term goals and check them off my list!

• Goal: Streamline our finances. Did it in a couple of hours and did it for free by using the online "Bill Pay" provided by my bank.
• Goal: Decrease clutter in our lives. Furthered that cause by signing up for "paperless statements" offered by most of my vendors. No more paper statements from insurance companies, credit cards, or utility companies. Everything possible goes to email. Still have miles to go before we sleep, on this goal.
  
• Goal: Drop excess chubbage. Hit the gym this morning. Created a training plan (thanks to Men's Health) and a diet plan. Planning on trying Cindy's gym and making use of the extra facilities there to raise the bar on my fitness levels. Again, miles to go on this goal.
  

One step and one goal at a time. I'll get there, sooner or later.

Why there's no need to see Untraceable

A) The tag line "A cyber killer has finally found the perfect accomplice: you" is fruiter than Hawaiian Punch.
B) The plot was obviously NOT written by somebody familiar with technology, because any first level fresh-out-of-college techsupport weasel could tell you, "Nothing is untraceable." And I've little doubt the producers will try to come up with some pseudo technical hogswill to try to unsuccessfully convince me otherwise.
C) THE PREVIEW TELLS THE WHOLE STORY! Why do I need to see it, when I know the whole plot and conclusion already: An ubercreepy hax0r cum-serial killer is going to cybercast in-process murders and the killing accelerates as more viewers hit the site. The FBI has to stop the killer. The killer outsmarts all of them. The killer stalks the best agent (Diane Lane) and her daughter. The agent almost gets put on a webpage of her own, but the killer somehow turns out to REALLY be Wile E. Coyote, and Diane Lane tricks him into defeating himself, but just barely.

Thanks to the brilliance of the guy who spelled out the whole story in the span of a 1min previesw, I saved 1.5hrs and $5.

Note to movie industry: DON'T SHOW ME THE WHOLE DAMN STORY!

Meg & The Magic Fruit

Meg tried something new, tonight. We had supper after her bath and she decided to try some of the Green Beans that Mommy cooked.

Here's a picture of the majestic event.

Hopefully she won't be climbing into bed with us in the morning.

Beans. Beans. The Magic Fruit. The More You Eat, The More You....

MOVIE: 28 Weeks Later

A notable sequel that fluidly picks up with the first left off.

Only six months after the "Rage Virus" spread across the population of Great Britain, America has stepped up and uses its military to help to secure a piece of London for the survivors. They're supposed to repopulate and start again. But (imagine this) not everything goes according to plan.

I thought the corpse of Briton was done well. The protocols they followed to re-establish the population weren't too off the scale. And I enjoyed the gradual build up of tension as the protagonist crept toward the "you know it's coming" moment.

Once the action began, it rarely stopped. Lots of the ol' ultra violence ensued. (It had to, this is a zombie flick, after all.) The heroes dwindle. The villains multiply. Escape dangles just out of reach. Fairly formulaic. Fans of the genre will rejoice.

However, one scene was too much for me. I think any viewer will know it when they are upon it. It still haunts my thoughts. I wish I could un-see it. But the damage is done.

One over-done scene aside, it was a worthy successor to the first. And I'd recommend it to anyone with a tougher stomach than mine and an extra hour to (pardon the pun) kill.

MOVIE: Clerks II

Q: What do the following all have in common:

• Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo
• Beastmaster: The Eye of Braxus
• Caddyshack II
• Pumpkinhead IV: Love Hurts

A: They were sequels that actually managed to SUCK LESS than Clerks II.

Outside of anything by Uwe Bole, there have been maybe three movies in the past thirty years that I've stopped watching in the first five minutes. Seriously. And Clerks II is one of those three.

I suppose the overwhelming vulgarity can eventually be saturating to the point of polymorphing itself into something remotely approaching "funny." I suppose the complete lack of acting ability is part of the humor. And perhaps the dialog is supposed to be stilted and trite.

Maybe I'm too old. Maybe I'm not cool enough. But I definitely do not "get it."

So I turned it off.

I've lost those five minutes of my life forever.

Kevin Smith owes me, big time.

MOVIE: Michael Clayton

I missed this one when it was on the Big Screen. I wish I had seen it when it was out, with Cindy and some popcorn.

It is a tale of morals, or the lack of them. Risk has reward on many stages of this grand theater we call life. And throwing away your principles can bring a large return on investment.

In the movie, a powerful NYC law firm has abandoned all moral standards and attempts to conceal evidence while will prove their client (an ominous agriculture company) willingly brought a poisonous product to market and (*shudder*) traded the death of untold farmers for a tidy profit.

Michael Clayton is a "fixer" for that law firm. He works behind the scenes. Greasing palms. Calling in favors. Making the right introductions. He's the firm's dirty little secret. Their aces up the sleeve. At least until he uncovers the evidence they've been doing their best to bury. And then he has a moral decision to make.

Opposite of Michael is the "Lead Council" for the law firm. She's outward cool and composed, seemingly capable of cutting down anyone who gets in the way of victory for her firm. She's a viper in the tall grass, slithering around in the shadows, waiting for an opportune moment to inject her venom. The Yen to Clayton's Yang. His counterbalance.

They dance. Lock horns. Almost get down to fisticuffs. In such conflict, there is only ever one victor. And their duel is an enthralling one, throughout the whole movie.

All in all, a smooth, enjoyable flick. Good pacing. Creative narrative elements. Great dialog. World-class acting. Well worth the price of admission. And sure to rack up a number of awards in the near future.

Grrrr

I've spent most of the last 20 years working on computers. Building them. Fixing them. Taking them apart . Putting them back together. But tonight, I spent THREE HOURS (with only partial success) trying to get Microsoft Office to work on my PC. GRRRRRR!!!!!

It runs fine, if I'm logged on as Administrator. But that's it. Even though other accounts are setup with Administrative permissions, none of the Office applications will launch. They just die without any log entries or error messages. I've re-installed and updated the program three times. And I've wasted my whole night trying to get it to work. I can't find anything on teh GOOG. Nobody else appears to have this problem. I'm some kinda of singular freakshow of unmatched sorrow.

All this so that I can use Frontpage, to edit HTML, and post some auctions on eBay.

And I've nothing to show for my efforts....

GRRRRR!!!

I'm going to bed.

Never enough

There's no such thing as "enough power tools." Not in this universe. Not in a parallel dimension. Not anywhere men exist.

Men also can not stand to see or use or be around a good power tool he does not personally own. Having borrowed Robert's (my father-in-law's) nailer for a couple of weeks, I can't bear to know I'll part ways with it and have to work without one.

So I bought my own nailer. And a cordless one at that! An 18v devil from Dewalt. Straight from the internet to my house. For half the price of one from Lowe's or Home Depot.

There's plenty of work on the horizon, and plenty of nails to shoot. And I'm gonna shoot 'em all with my own power tool! Too much is never enough.

MOVIE: The Kite Runner

Having young children means I don't like watching movies which depict problems for young children. I don't like to watch anyone suffer, but it rips me in half when kids are involved.

That being said, I would recommend The Kite Runner to anyone, especially parents. It is a beautiful, touching movie. Well directed. Well written. Fantastic musical score. Great acting. Great cinematography. Great everything.

It makes me appreciate my life and my upbringing. It makes me appreciate my family. Appreciate my children. Appreciate my home. And my life. And my friends.

It was also a great follow up to watching Charlie Wilson's War. Both fantastic flicks. Both need to be seen on the big screen.

BOOK: Roo'd

I've been into "free" fiction lately. Usually stories published under a Creative Commons license. Most recently, I downloaded a copy of Roo'd, from Joshua Klein. And if Roo'd is Joshua's first book, I'm absolutely impressed!

It is a story about a young programmer (Fed) finding his path in a tech-rich world of immersing technology. After a prolonged absence, Fed re-establishes contact with his older brother, and finds himself wrapped up in a tangle of hackers, under ground technology, radical body modifications, and world-spanning mafias. The rabbit hole keeps getting deeper and Fed, along with his brother and a motley cadre of cohorts, find themselves slipping further and further into it.

Joshua's pacing of the story is fantastic. It rarely slowed and he quickly dragged me into the story. I didn't want to put it down. I kept wanting to read what happened next. The locations and situations were equally fascinating. And I was completely smitten with the technology and its adoption by society. Best of all, very little of the tale lurked beyond our horizon. It wasn't far fetched or unreasonable.

I liked the idea of radical body modding. I wanted more of it. Especially from Fed's brother. And even more details about the mod fighters.

I liked the communication-based technologies. Fed's chording. Cessus' glasses.

I liked Cessus' ideas concerning cognitive abilities and the training he gave Fed. I was very glad to see the story didn't become a cyber version of Fear And Loathing, dripping in futuristic drugs and booze.

Joshua has a knack for fleshing out his characters, but I didn't think he treated them all equally. Some of the primary characters felt under-created. Felt flimsy. I thought they all had enormous potential, but some didn't have enough time in the limelight. However, perhaps the lack of depth helped speed the pace. And slowing the tale would have diminished my enjoyment of it.

I did think there was a glaring plot hole about 2/3rds the way through. The store reaches critical mass and the characters have to recover some missing data. Perhaps I missed something, but I thought the data should NOT have gone missing because of the precautions Fed and crew took. It's just a technical quip, and I'm going to write Joshua to get his input.

Other than my lone complaint, I was thoroughly enthralled with the novel. It is a shame it was not picked up by a publisher. I think it would make a much better contribution to the scifi genre than many other books I've read in recent years.

Joshua, give us more one day!

Old baggage

My family played a big role of my return to the Gulf Coast. And my Father was a big part of that decision. He's always had a huge influence on my work ethic. I grew up seeing that working hard and treating people with respect is the foundation of a successful career.

In 2005, before Katrina, he received an award for Employee Of The Year. Out of 3600 employees! I moved down and joined him, not long after that. Everyone knows him. Everyone knows my Mom, too. Jason and I just ride their coat tails.

But today was Dad's last day working Front Services. After four (or five?) years, he's saying goodbye to the crowd. But he's only changing roles. Going from the front of the house, to the back of the house. Like me, he's going to be an ENGINEER! But unlike me, he's working with the real engineer group, doing repairs and changes to the property. I just move packets.

So it is a new adventure, for Dad. I wish him luck. I know he'll continue to make us proud, no matter what he does.

Contemporary Productivity

A short-term goal of mine is to unclutter the various spaces in my life: work, home, car, gargage, mind. To meet that goal, I cleaned out my closet and dresser for the first time in years. I pulled out anything I haven't worn since we moved back to the Coast and anything I don't plan to wear this year. Ended up with bunches of shorts and t-shirts and button-ups and some faded bluejeans. I'm going to donate them to the Humane Society. I hope they find a good home for my former duds. They served me well, but I'm past the "torn jeans" and "concert shirts" stage in my life.

Also managed to capture several hours of video off the camcorder and load it onto the PC for future posting. The kids and Cindy sat with me and watched most of it. Brought back some memories (snow in TN, Meg's bday, Liam's bday) and inspired me to record more of the events in our lives. I really don't want to lose these days, while the kids are young and loving. God knows I'll probably have to edit out most of their teen years. My collection of video will go from, "Hey, we're at Disney World," to "Meg's first day of college."

And snuck in some gym time. Shoulders and legs. Four more miles on the treadmill. Up to 16 miles this week. I don't think I ran that much in the first twenty years of my life combined.

Going to keep cleaning tomorrow. Hopefully get more drawers organized, more clutter removed, and maybe even get some stuff on eBay. I don't need much of this crap, but somebody (somewhere) might pay good money to add it to their collection.

The exchange of clutter from one household to the next: contemporary productiviy.

Notes from abroad

Heard from three of my amigos, today.

First, my buddy Less (aka: Rasta) IMed me from Amsterdam, of all places. He was on a train and we swapped messages about the weather and his trip. He sent me a snap from his adventures in Dublin, Ireland. Unless I'm way off base, I think it is supposed to be Peter painted as Che Guevara. I want this tattoo'ed on my buttocks.

Next, I talked to Adam (aka: Icetre) about Pinball and Penn Jillette's new web-based shizzle, "Penn Says."Every time I'm in Las Vegas, I debate going to see Penn & Teller. If it wouldn't put such a dent in my wallet, I'd see them every time I stopped through their neck of the woods. But these days a hunded dollar ticket is a hundred dollars less I have to spend on the kids or student loans.

Also said goodbye to a buddy/coworker, in Las Vegas. Kevin (aka Kevin!) is moving to the San Jose area with his spouse. He was a great resource to have available at work and we talked a great deal about our private trials and tribulations. I'll miss him, but hopefully he'll pop up on AIM every now and then to let me know how his adventures are going.

Finally, talked to Kim (aka: Alpha Dawg) about unemployment and the fact that he's going to be a Grand Pappy this year. I suggested he give his lady (Nenna) a baby. Then his second child and his first grandchild would be the same age. He said I had a knack for F'ing up his good moods.

All in a day's work.

Working it off

Two more hours in the gym today.

Back. Biceps. Cardio.

Twelve miles of running so far this week. At least twelve hundred calories melted off my many layers of blubber.

That's the secret: working it off.

There's simple math lurking behind my madness. One pound of corpulence = 3500 calories. If I work off 1750 calories, that's half a pound I've shed. Combine that with a 1750 calorie reduction in the food I eat each week, I stand to lose a pound of flesh. Keep that up for six months, and that's a potential loss of 24 pounds. The more aggressive I get, the more I stand to lose.

I think it is doable. I think my math is sound. So I'm going to keep trying to work it off.

Goo goo

Oh, sweet blissful sleep! I've missed you, old friend. I truly missed you.

I ran four more miles yesterday (and today!) then skipped any writing, skipped any reading, and crawled straight into bed. Believe it or not (I barely believe it myself!) by 9:30P, I was completely unconscious.

It has been weeks, months, and maybe years since I was asleep so early. I think Haley's Comet is more common!

Out by 9:30, awake at 7AM. Almost ten hours of down time. I slept like the proverbial baby! It was greatly needed. And I felt fantastic all day.

(sigh)

Oh, well. If only I could do that more often. I'd have far less to kvetch about.

Anyone can

If I haven't mentioned it before, I was never active as a child or even as a young adult. I was very small most of my life and showed nothing remotely promising on any physical level. I am not now nor have I ever been an athlete. I don't like working out. I can't stand running. And I hate hate hate to sweat

But today I ran four miles in 30 minutes. My iPod raged in my ears. I was drowning in sweat. My legs ached every step of the last mile. I could barely keep a decent pace with my breathing. But I did it. I pushed myself with every every heart beat. And I refused to quit. Oh, I wanted to! But I didn't quit.

I don't want to be inactive any more.

I don't want to be over weight.

I want to be healthy. I want to feel good. And that doesn't happen by magic. It doesn't happen over night.

Whatever it takes, however long it takes, I'm going to stop making excuses and make it happen.

If I can do it, anyone can do it. I've got two children, a wife, I'm renovating a house, and have quite a demanding job. I'm a geek. A couch potato. A book worm.

If I can, anyone can.

BOOK: Ventus by Karl Schroeder

I've been reading a good bit lately. It helps me grow closer to sleep at night.

The other day, I downloaded Ventus as a free book from Karl Schroeder's site. Printed it up and gnawed a chapter or so each night.

I don't think I've read anything from Mr Schroeder before, but I immediately enjoyed his writing style. It is light and unencumbered and makes for easy reading at the end of a long day.

Ventus is science fiction, but also has many slightly fantasy elements. The story centers on a planet (called Ventus) that is unique isolated from the rest of the inhabited universe because it is tended by biomechanical lifeforms. These caretakers teraformed the world and even built large estates for the first colonists. But something went wrong and the nano-sized machines became detached from the people who arrived and started to destroy any advanced technology that arrived or was developed. The nano effectively kept the entire planet in a perpetual pre-industrial age stage.

It is an interesting mix of sci fi and fantasy. But the character development was a little under done for my tastes and the writing had a tendency to "tell" rather than "show," especially involving the characters' feelings and motivations.

Other than a lack of depth in certain places, I enjoyed the book and I'd certainly recommend it to anyone fond of science fiction. I liked the universe of Ventus and I hope I can find or Mr. Schroeder can write more tales inside of it.

Live TV Is Dead

Sadly, I grew up watching television. I didn't play outside. I didn't do anything constructive. I had a full time job watching television. I ate thousands of meals and spent hundreds of thousands of hours watching it.

So, in theory, I should be the perfect victim for broadcasters. Somewhere in the dark lizard-like curves of my forebrain, there is a gland or a batch of cells that only relaxes when exposed to the light of a large CRT. If I could relax and get into it, I'd let them illuminate my eyeballs until they bake and bleed.

However, I barely watch three or four shows a week. And what I do watch is recorded.

I almost NEVER watch live television. I refuse to spend 25% of my time (15 minutes out of every hour) watching ineffective advertisements for products I will never purchase and never consume. And the truly obscene thing is that it is practically impossible to avoid the hordes of commercials because all the major broadcasters are in collusion. They coordinate their schedules so perfectly that almost every channel is showing a commercial AT THE SAME TIME. You can not avoid them. You have no avenue of escape.

Not me. Not any more. I set my PC to record a few shows, and it automatically removes the commercials. Then, when I'm ready, at my leaisure, I catch up on a week's worth of shows in an hour or two.

This, my friend, is the only way I will ever, ever, ever, ever watch television.

What does Jon record? Fight Quest. Intervention. Paranormal State. Ghost Hunters. And Monster Quest. And when it is a new season, I record The Ultimate Fighter.

Notice that none of those shows are on ABC, NBC, or CBS? (Fox gets a reprieve because I record House M.D. when it is a new season!) The "Big Media" channels hold nothing of interest these days. There's almost nothing original or interesting or even remotely creative on "prime time." Nothing to challenge the viewer. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

So, I watch what I want, when I want, and how I want. And I watch it without surrendering a quarter of my time to advertisers.

I've washed my hands of most of it. I've divorced "the tube." Live television is dead to me. And I'm holding no funerals to mark its passing.

MOVIE: Rize

I was grazing the fields at Block Buster when I came across this title. Interesting cover. Interesting caption: "A visual miracle!" Since it wasn't directed by Uwe Boll, I gave it shot. (Uwe, by the way, is most likely the worst "Director" to ever put his stink on a movie. He's like an Anti-Midas, anything he touches turns to shite!)

At first (for probably half the movie, actually!) I thought it was a very straight-faced mockumentary. Maybe I'm a very sheltered geek. Or maybe I'm far too crackerfied to really know anything about "West Coast" social movements. But I've never even imagined there'd be a style of dance developed by a clown, who was looking to make a defying statement against the 1992 L.A Riots. Not only did it get aptly named "clowning," but a radical fringe group of clowners broke off and mutated the style into "krumping." It sounds like science fiction and I kept looking for the punch line. ("Ha! You fell for it!) But the social movement of clowning and krumping are completely authentic, and well documented in Rize.

Without the slightest bit of sarcasm or persnicketiness, I will admit it was a tremendous pleasure to watch this movie. I was hypnotized! By the people. By their stories. By the amazing development of this sub-culture. And especially by the seemingly impossible moves displayed by everyone in the show.

On top of the incredible content, the direction is perfect. The pacing flows extremely well. The musical score is phenomenal. And it is all pulled together with such precision that the movie seems to create itself without any outside influence or support. How this slipped past everyone's radar is beyond me. I can only imagine it is due to the obscurity of the subject matter being so far beyond anyone's usual interest (outside of California) that it was a complete sleeper when it hit the theaters.

I still can't believe I'm writing about this movie! I still can't believe it isn't fictional! I want more. I want to see parts two, three, and four. I want to know what happened once the cameras stopped rolling and all these people had to go back to their lives.

I want a sequel!