Author: Thom

I have followed Penny Arcade for quite sometime now. It’s amazing to see just how far those two guys have come, from a simply drawn strip about video games and violence with barely a note on their part to a full-time job and a site filled with news, reviews, and merchandising. Having bore witness to much of this growth, it almost gives me a sense of pride to announce that Kara, Mike’s wife, just had a baby boy. Rather fittingly, they named him Gabriel.

Mac over at pesky’apostrophe has put together a fine comparison of the presidential candidates based on *GASP* the issues. Each entry deals with a different area, with the latest being Bush and Kerry’s stance on Veterans and the military. They are even available in PDF format for those inclined towards more printable copies.

While it does lean towards Kerry, Mac has kept it fairly clean and given credit (on the few occasions) where Bush so deserves. For once, this appears to be an honest-to-goodness attempt at contrasting the real issues at stake here – not who did what back in 1972. I haven’t gone through all of it, but it appears to be an excellent place to start for people looking to become more informed.

(Thanks to Stupid Evil Bastard)

So the little lady is out of town. Lisa is helping her cousin with an impromptu move tonight. Tomorrow she’ll be heading to her parents for some quality time before they migrate South for the winter. Then Saturday she’ll be going to a friend’s baby shower. There’s a good chance that I’ll be spending the next two nights, and part of the weekend alone before we head down to my parents’ house for my sister’s wedding. Loneliness ensues…

Well, I can deal with it for a couple days. It might even give me a chance to work on somethings that I haven’t had time for. Not to mention the start of the NFL season tonight. Oh yeah, I got Steak-ums, onion rolls, spices, BBQ chips, beer, and some lettuce (for the guinea pigs). That should make for a real evening. Pretty soon my landlords will be wondering what they got themselves into by letting this maniac who screams at nobody in general at great injustices set upon by referees into their home. At least they don’t have to deal with the Eagles game this week 😛 . Now if only I can get the new wireless connection working in the living room…

Something about weekends. I’m not online as much (I’m sure Lisa would disagree with that), and it tends not to bother me. Basically it means that each week I tend not to take a break from posting over the weekend. Of course, that means that I’m backed up come Monday and I can’t think of what topics to write first. That easily leads to procrastination, and now it is Wednesday and I have been silent since Friday. These three day weekends don’t help, either (not that I would get rid of them or anything).

This weekend was quite a refresher, because so many things worked their way towards completion. The apartment being on of them. The couch was delivered on Saturday, so we now have a working living room. Not that it was broken before, but we can both sit and watch TV there now. It certainly opens up the apartment more when you can start using all of the rooms. Inspired by such additions, I’ve packed away a lot of my crap that was still sitting around in milk crates. Unfortunately we now have a bunch of empty milk crates, but one step at a time, please. At the very least, I can see inviting people over in the near future.

The end of last week also brought several deliveries. I now have a 1 GB card for my Digital Rebel. That means that I can take close to 300 pictures without worries (or 130 in RAW format). Now I just have to go out and find photo-worthy subjects (my sister’s wedding this upcoming weekend may just be the first opportunity). On top of that, my new computer was delivered. Yeah, I was sick of how poorly my old one was handling USB 2.0, so I bought one of those barebone kits from Tiger Direct that included a nice new case, motherboard, Athlon XP 3000+ CPU, and added on 512MB of 400MHz RAM. Oooohh, you may all bask in my geeky glow! It has been reconstructed (aside from one or two minor components) and is running smoothly. I will be taking the leftovers from my old desktop and my current server to form a new server. By their powers combined, mighty they shall be!

I also went down to Philly Friday night for dinner with my family. We ate at a wonderful restaurant (The Continental), and enjoyed our usual witty repartee. The more time I spend in areas like Old City, the more I realize that I would rather live in Philly than New York. As much as you have at your fingertips in NYC, you don’t have neighborhoods that nice. Chances are I will never live in a city again, but I do imagine myself talking Lisa into moving closer to PA as time progresses. In the meantime, we will enjoy our life together in Montclair.

Along with the redesign I keep claiming will take place, I also need to decide how to deal with links to other sites. As time goes on, I decide which of my regular reads need to be shared with others. After enough humorous or informative posts, I tend to add someone to the sidebar. Of course it helps if they top it all off with one that almost makes me piss my pants. Thanks for that one Jess, this link’s for you.

For the love of God and all that is holy, doesn’t anybody else want a Gmail account?!?! I get six invites, and give away three of them. Aparently that leaves me with six! Someone help me with that math. And on top of it, they keep moving the link around the screen and changing it’s colors as if to say, “please, invite more of those unhuddled masses into our restricted beta.” Even better is the fact that they put a link at the bottom of every e-mail message to invite that person. Pretty soon I’ll be inviting Netflix, Amazon, and a few mailing lists to Gmail just to shut them up.

So here it goes, I’ve still got 6 more of these Gmail invites. If you want one, just leave a comment here telling me how much I rock.

EDIT: I am now down to 5 invites.

Not long after the move, Lisa and I took a nice walk around Montclair to get to know the town a bit. Not too surprisingly, along the way I found various subjects to photograph. Some of these included the beautiful houses around us, the cracked old sidewalks, and the nearby museum. Some of these also included signs on the main road through town. Nobody confronted my or made me feel uncomfortable, nevertheless I became self-conscious that these days my activities would be included under the heading “suspicious behavior”. What really bothers me, is that people all over are being stopped for doing exactly what I was doing, enjoying a wonderful day outside and wanting to capture the moment.

A couple months ago I had read about one of these unforunate encounters and the resulting fallout. Today (thanks to kottke’s remainders) I found Ian Spiers’ complete recounting of this tale of a fear-driven, authoritarian nightmare. Reading the story in its entirety made my blood begin to boil. I will stress this right now: if what happened to Ian Spiers does not enrage you or bring any amount of sympathy, you’re missing the big picture. If you can read that account and feel that the authorities conducted themselves appropriately, then YOU ARE UNAMERICAN. That’s right, I said it. Anyone who condones such activities is as far from a patriot as you can get. As a matter of fact, they are signaling defeat to terrorism with ever law signed into the books.

The terrorists are not here to take control of the country. They are not overthowing our government. They do not desire to kill all of us. Rather, they wish to destroy our way of life. They want us to live in fear. They want us to surrender our freedoms in an attempt to feel safe. And that is exactly what the government is doing in the name of security. And this supposed security that so many conservatives cling to as reasoning that our lives are better and that America as a whole is better and that the rest of the world is wrong is a complete fabrication.

Stopping a photographer from taking pictures of a public place merely because his skin is brown is not security.

I’m am sick to my stomach thinking about such transgressions of civil liberties. I once respected people in authority. I never will again. With these current attitudes we are quickly deteriorating into the totalitarian regimes that we used to disparage, with their constant cries of “Your papers, please?” How can you possibly encourage these power hungray egomaniacs that are supposed “to serve and protect” instead to subjugate and humiliate? Wasn’t the ideal for our government to give power to the people, not take it away?

And so now I find myself googling for “photographer’s rights” , which quickly takes me to a lawyer’s handbook on the matter, complete with a downloadable PDF flyer. I have printed multiple copies (at least one to keep with each camera) and am now printing the ACLU Bustcard. No, they are not legal counsel. No, they will not protect me from the powers that be. Nevertheless, they will now be kept on my person at all times. They are my new “papers”.

I will now try to follow the truly important stories. Not this farce of an election (I have little hope that Bush and company will allow this one to slip out of their hands, no matter how much cheating it takes this time), rather what people like Ian Spiers and John Gilmore have to say. We already lost an important one with Dudley Hiibel, let’s try to stop the bleeding there.

Do you realize how fantastic it is living mere blocks from a couple art house/indie movie theaters? It’s like a dream come true for me. Sunday night Lisa and I headed over to the Claridge Cinema to catch Garden State – Zach Braff‘s magnum opus. Now I’m already a fan of his from his excellent work in Scrubs. He simply oozes that quirky and self-deprecating wit for which I have such an affinity. I can’t help but feel a connection with his character, and who he appears to be as a real person. So Garden State was a fairly big must-see for myself. And what can I say, Zach certainly lives up to his praises.

I don’t want to say too much on the subject, because it’s a film best experienced without the expectations that too much publicity heap on. It is an intimate journey of one man’s confused existence trying to understand, not just how he got there, but where that actually is. I’m sure that doesn’t really make sense, but that’s not the point. The point is to get you to realize that this film says something beautiful, and it does so beautifully. The Garden State isn’t a place that people choose to be – it’s where they’re stuck. But whether you want to run away from it or run with it is up to you, and ultimately it’s not location that defines who you are. We all become trapped in our lives in one way or another. That doesn’t mean we still can’t make the choices that will make us happy. Especially when all it takes sometimes is to look in the mirror and laugh at yourself.

On top of it being well-written and directed, Garden State could represent Natalie Portman‘s “re-breakout” role. This is the performance I’ve been waiting for from her since Léon (aka The Professional). She is stunning, funny, touching, and oh-so realistic in her portrayal of the troubled Samantha. I can’t stress how perfectly she nailed that role and can merely close my eyes, click my heels, and hope that some sort of award floats her way.

So yeah, go see it. Now. I’m serious. 🙂

Just got my new medical card at work. They took off the SSN for security reasons. It’s so rare to see companies actually do things like that. I’m so inspired, maybe I’ll actually use it this year! Well, I do need to get new glasses (and I’d like to switch back to contacts in general), so that one visit. I also think I’m coming up on my every-6-years dental appointment (Wait, what’s that you say? Every 6 months?!?! Oh crap…), and Lisa is anxious for me to actually get a checkup with a real doctor who might even be able to tell me what that strange rash I’ve had on my shin for… oh… 3 years is. It’s quite simply a miracle of bacon and beer that I can even get out of bed in the mornings I’m such a mess.

I’m also beardless again. I know what you’re all thinking: You grew a beard? It’s not like many people outside of work have seen it. I got lazy during the move and wound up with hair all over my face. Who knew? Anywho, since Lisa and I headed down to the beach this weekend (more on that later) I decided clean-shaven was teh only way to fly. Unfortunately, I was unable to get a haircut at the same time, so the mop on top makes my head look rather uneven. I’ll deal with that tonight.

Yes, Lisa and I did try to do some beach combing this weekend. We didn’t quite plan it (my fault), and it almost ended in disaster, but by the time we got back from Atlantic City at 3:30 am it had turned out to be a pretty good day. I don’t even want to go into all of the crappy details (one destination was closed, another locale was too busy, another too expensive, and we lost about an hour backtracking through traffic), but the end result was a nice dinner at Planet Hollywood, some fun on the slots, and a trip through Ripley’s Believe-It-Or-Not Museum. Thanks to the nickel slots, we even came out ahead. Hard to believe, but we turned $10 into over $60 on those things. This was aided by Lisa accidentally doing the “Max Bet” option for a couple rounds of multi-hand poker, including one in which she got some flushes (worth 200 nickels each, I’ll have you know).

Most importantly, it looks like without traffic we can hit AC in about 2 hours. Of course now that I’ve been there, I can’t really say how much I want to go back 😛 .

I forgot to mention yesterday that I actually got hit by a real comment spammer. Can you believe it, lil’ ol’ me?!?! I think putting links to your site on mine might actually decrease your page rank. For the most part any spam is quickly moderated by WordPress because I set a limit of 4 links per comment (a limit that has only caught one real comment in its trap). That lets me delete most of them before they even see the light of day. This guy (we’ll call him… fioricet), seemed to figure that out and only used 3 links. Tricky bastard. So a few actually appeared on the site before I got to delete them and ban his IP (and then the second one that he switched to).

The one thing I like about these guys is the random text that they grab to make it seem like they’re for real. This guy happened to quote Futurama:

Leela: Ah, maybe they’re right, maybe Nibbler is dumb.
Fry: Don’t listen to them, Leela. People said I was dumb but I proved them!

I almost left the comment and just deleted the links. They hit me with just over a dozen comments, so it wasn’t a big deal. Even if they all got through it would have taken me less than 30 seconds to delete them all. But it still makes me wonder, is my site really worth it? Sure, I’m still the one and only indieb0i, but that really doesn’t help my pagerank, much less anybody else’s. Probably time to look into one of the plugin solutions, such as Kitten’s Spam Words.

In the meantime, I am actually working off of the WP nightlies these day, and am seriously looking at a redesign. Most likely it will be based upon Michael Heilmann‘s wonderful Kubrick theme. In case you didn’t know, there’s a possibility that some of that design will find it’s way into the default template for WP 1.3. Sadly, a lot of people don’t think well for themselves and a near war broke out on the forums because of this pseudo-announcement. (Note: Feel free to read some of that exchange, but please don’t add to it. The thread appears to have finally, and rightfully, died.)

The plan was to write a whole diatribe about the stupidity of those involved. Well, at least those who were most responsible for the ridiculous assumptions that created the problems. But instead I think it is more important to focus on the positive, so I will simply direct those interested to Matt’s discussion of the matter. You might also find Joen’s write-up to be higly enlightening. For my part, I feel perhaps the time is coming for me to step up and really help out the community. I will be looking for ways to help out with WordPress, as soon as I take care of my own shit.