Wednesday, June 27, 2007

"The CW" Hates Its Viewers

No, only the viewers. The network that killed "Everwood" in favor of lower rated programming, which killed "Veronica Mars" in May announced the next episode of "Hidden Palms" is the series finale. The show is only seven episodes old (or will be). Ever the masochist, I guess I'll tune in at 8pm anyway. I was going to sleep but I can wait another hour.

I've felt remarkably good today. I'm sure it's a fluke.

Monday, June 25, 2007

It's Only Monday?

It's going to be a long week. Look, it's JUST A PHONE!

The breaking news is the first shipment of iPhones have landed on US shores under armed guard.

No, really.

You'd think this was Osama being extradited from Pakistan!

In other news, Paris is almost a free bird.

I've had enough. I'm going to sleep.

There's KYLE XY tonight on ABC Family, 8pm. I'll probably catch it later on.

I miss Apple Computer, Inc.

iFoaming for iPhones...

It's that time! iPhones coming. Zombies drool. Cult members fall into line. Hope spring eternal that July will bring a return to Mac news at tech sites as the frantic lust for the holy and unblemished iPhone is sated. International readers are lucky.

Last week, or something on that order, Kitty and I decided a compassionate deity would not compel you to live but a single lifetime trapped by the limits of that life be they physical or environmental. Everyone should have an opportunity to sample the true variety of experience of living. Straights should experience a gay life, the poor and infirm that of the well-to-do and robust while the mentally ill get a taste of living as the mentally balanced.

It's Monday.

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Saturday Was Quiet

Kitty and I caught up on sleep. Someone was outside tearing up root systems. I told her, "Better him than me." I did that last year and don't miss it.

Dream was odd: I was naked because I was so tired I hadn't noticed I didn't put on clothes. Oops.

Kyle XY is back already! In fact, there've been two shows! That was earlier than I'd read online it'd return and even more annoying was the thing came back on the major ABC network and not the "ABC Family" cable channel it debuted on last year. I only know Kyle was back because I saw part of the second episode last night while I was looking to see if there was any news about yet another fire. (Aside: the fire was supposedly hot spots from the other day, not anything new.) So, anyway, I'll catch up with Kyle online.

I made food but don't have an appetite. I want to return to bed. *sigh* I told kitty to let me know when she wants to put me to bed and I won't argue.

Friday, June 22, 2007

Freaky Friday?

At 7am, the tree killers were back. Yes, they've taken down some trees in the complex and parked the wood chipper in front of the apartment. It wasn't as obnoxious as it was yesterday because I already had the windows closed. Kitty wasn't dancing but didn't hide.

Early this afternoon, I was listening to a streaming radio show and she was sleeping in her bedroom chair. Suddenly the apartment shook and I was shocked by the sudden noise. Nerves unusually rattled, I looked outside; all was still. I went outside to look around. Nothing. I checked online and saw no significant quake activity.

Later this afternoon the local news answered my mystery. Shuttle Atlantis had landed safely at Edwards AFB in California and its approach brought it over San Diego. What I'd felt and heard was its sonic boom. Very cool. Military jets, which I'd grown up with, have nothing on *that*. Awesome, let me tell you.

The SIL had a birthday today. I never did hear anything about the surprise party Brother was going to have for her. Kitty and I sent an e-card. Mother would call and leave a message. I'm not Mother.

I sense time for sleep fast approaching.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Next Time You Look In The Mirror...

Remember, you could look like this guy! Stop feeling sorry for yourself:

Apple Inc. Discontinues Mac Line*

After 13 years, Apple Inc. has decided to end the Macintosh brand. Computer offerings from the company will immediately be rebranded iPhone Brick, iPhone Portrait, and iPhone Cheesegrater.

The coming release of the former Mac OS X Leopard shall be known as iPhone OS X LeapingLizards.

(* not really)

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

VLC 0.8.6c Released

It is a free cross-platform media player and can be found at VideoLAN. This release includes some security updates.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Flag Day

The flag is out. I closed the windows for kitty because there was mowing going on. More if I feel like it.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

SIX MONTHS!?

If I'm to believe my calendar I moved in 6 months ago. That seems hard to believe. Duckie was talking to me then. Seems a life time ago.

Windows folks having the worst problems with Safari 3 ßeta are non-English users. The Mac version is quick and doesn't seem too fraught with instability. I'm a little skittish over it replacing the webkit used by all apps though. We'll see how that turns out.

I need to sleep. I closed the windows because kitty was nervous over the garbage truck. Now it's getting stuffy.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

"Worst Keynote Evar"

That was one chatter's opinion. I don't know yet. I have to watch the stream. I listened to an audio feed and I've seen the promo bits at Apple.com. The translucent menu bar is just crazy. That they made the menu's less translucent has to say something. In fact, I think the Mac OS X menus have become more opaque since 10.0. Anyway, I wasn't blown away because eight of the ten features shown at the keynote were shown at WWDC in 2006. Has the iPhone sucked up that many resources at Apple?

I've read the Safari 3 beta for Windows runs on W2K as well as XP & Vista. I'll have to try it out there. I will say it's dramatically faster on Tiger than Safari 2 or the "webkit nightlies" I've used until Camino 1.5 hit the streets. Clearly there's been a lot more performance available on older hardware but software just hadn't been sufficiently tuned. I will say Apple's been pretty good at that. Each Mac OS X major update has improved performance. I was among those disappointed there were no hardware updates.

I was fill-in DJ last night. My song choices got good reviews. I wasn't totally happy with two or three but overall it worked out. There were some technical hiccups early and then about three quarters through the show there was an encoding incompatibility which blew things up for a bit but nothing I couldn't handle. This was a good thing since I was the support staff for my show.

Picking songs for others entertainment is more difficult than for your own and the licensing scheme brings legal limitations about how often an artist can be played, not using multiple tracks from a single album, the hour delay before playing requests... and so forth. It's been an interesting experience and taxing in different ways.

I want to thank Leon for tuning in during work although he sacrificed chance at a lunch other than ramen to do so.

Since I didn't sleep much yesterday, I'm exhausted. However, I'm loathe to turn in just yet. My eyes ache with tireness so I may not have much say in the matter of staying up a few more hours. I still need to double-check on the meat recall expansion. Grr. That can wait for another day.

Monday, June 11, 2007

Time To See Leopard's Spots...

It's that day! The WWDC keynote begins in just over 1 hour and we're promised a "feature complete" look at Mac OS 10.5 Leopard. Only Mac users would go so far as to obsess over keynote speeches and even create a bingo game. Get your bingo card-generating app here.

Friday, June 08, 2007

Friday Fun

It's 4:35AM. It's been two weeks of no Duckie. I hope he's well. There's been some bad flooding in NSW I'm told. I'd hate to think seven years of friendship is being tossed away. I'm trying to stay calm and my mind on other things. This month's calendar image is Brisbane's King George Square which is apparently being dug up for tunnel work.

Kitty was just having a bite to eat. Go kitty!

The Paris Hilton "reassignment" was Thursday's big story. Murray was embarrassed Aus has been so interested in it. The UK seems less so thus I declare there's a sliver of hope for civilization. Obviously the big deal with the Paris development is the unequal treatment under the law. She did three days in prison but got credit for five because she arrived just before midnight and left around 2am, she got credited with those few hours as entire days in prison. That's just silly. The judge specifically excluded house arrest as an option in his sentencing order. The entertainment value here is over the L.A. Sheriff's dept. attempting to explain its way clear of a potential contempt citation. For me, this is a local story about fundamental issues of equity.

The meat recall was expanded. I need to look up the details. I took out my garbage and picked up my mail for the first time in a couple days. Wow, I had enough ads to revive a rainforest. Some of them were even addressed to me! I had at least one each for two prior residents. I mailed a bill too. It was very still tonight, not even a hint of breeze. For awhile I ran the ceiling fans. The windows have been wide open tonight to air out the apartment. Kitty seems to be doing OK.

My neck in pained so I took a nap earlier.

I have not found anyone who has tuned in for CW's "Wild Palms" yet but I'm still asking around. I saw portions of an episode on Wednesday. I also happened to watch an episode of "The Traveler" which has the most ridiculous casting I've seen in ages. It's as if a sea of secondary players decided to gang up and do a show. There's a reason these folks haven't been leads before. Oh well, it keeps costs down. The story isn't as compelling as you'd think a story of a pair of college grads set-up as patsies for a terrorist attack on an art museum could be.

ABC finally axed Isaiah Washington from "Greys Anatomy." In another line of work he'd have been fired on the spot for slugging Patrick Dempsey on the set. T.R. Knightly, the "faggot" on whom Washington was picking on, will be back with a pay raise. I always thought Isaiah was homely. I wonder if his career is over or if he'll make a come back like Rob "underage sex tape" Lowe, or Marv "the biter" Alpert. Time will tell.

Next week is the Apple "World-Wide Development Conference" (WWDC). We'll finally get a look at the "feature complete" Leopard. I'm not keen on the rumors of color anodized aluminum enclosures for upcoming iMacs. Netscape is back with a 9.x beta (Windows & Mac OS X). I tried it for a few minutes. It's like Firefox but has added Netscape.com-specific junk and its very tacky looking.

It's gone to the trash can already. Camino, a Mac-native, browser which uses the same rendering engine as Firefox is up to 1.5 this week. Compared to Firefox, Opera, Webkit nightly, it's very frisky on older Power PC-based Macs. Good work. In the olden days, I think Camino was started by the guy who Apple hired to lead the Safari / Webkit project.

Researches powered a light bulb wirelessly. I should find that link and add it later.

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Funny that...

Back in the day, Father got a "Boost" energy drink with his meds before bedtime. Somehow with all those drinks this never happened.

I'm confused and disappointed that I've heard nothing of the Duckie in two weeks. Kitty continues to purr and share the sofa when she gets her TV shows. One out of two isn't bad, right? I'm sure down the road we're going to have a meeting about putting Duckie's likeness on a milk carton.

It's 10am and I'm sleepy.

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

They Gotta Do Better Than That!

There is a beef recall and it's the brand I purchased. However, unlike the peanut butter, I don't appear to have bought the contaminated lot. See the detailed info at the USDA website.

Kitty barfed on her water dish. Poor thing. She also licked my hand although that was later. I think I'm addicted to dark chocolate-covered almonds. We're about halfway thought the third season of "Wonder Woman" and, so far, I find the episodes particularly weak compared to the prior season.

There are a couple of continuity gaffes. One is huge. Diana parks her Mercedes behind a huge delivery truck outside an airport, when they cut to the shot of her exiting the car the giant truck is gone. It was so obvious I had to go back and make sure my brain hadn't played a trick on me. Honestly, I'm not sure how she even knew to go to the airport right then in that episode.

Her boss, back in D.C., says "right here in L.A." while talking to her on the phone. It's probably me but Ms. Carter doesn't seem as into her roll as she was the prior season. This wouldn't surprise me, the stories aren't exactly grabbing me. There are a few involving aliens coming up. Maybe the best moment in the season so far was a guest starring actor who played Darren's boss, "Mr. Tate," in "Bewitched."

Sunday, June 03, 2007

Sunday Silence

It's a quiet day although a bit warm tonight. I just changed the litter box. I should've done it before eating instead of after. Kitty is hiding in the bedroom behind her chair. I'm not sure what that's about. Sunday radio wasn't as interested as I'd hoped so I tuned out after an hour.

Is It Really June?

She and I finished up watching "Wonder Woman" season 2. It wasn't too bad. There was really just one episode that annoyed me substantially. It was about a girl from the other-dimensional "Islandia." It was bad. Really bad. Worse than the alien two-parter or "Radar" from M.A.S.H. as a janitor.

On the production end, I winced every time the ATHENA missile appeared on screen because now only could you clearly see the two wires but it was casting a shadow on the sky behind it at times. It was near the end of the season, they were probably low on funds! I'm a little curious about the change from the solidly circular headpiece thrown early in the season to a very obvious metal boomerang Lynda Carter has to pretend to reshape for placement on her head. I noticed, however, the head-piece itself looked better later in the season. It was smoother. I don't recall noticing other costume changes. I may have mentioned noticing she actually wore panty hose under the shorts of her costume which was a bit of a surprise.

These are the kinds of things DVD viewing can bring out that watching over-the-air broadcast TV back in 1977 just wouldn't show even on a comparably-sized screen such as the Zenith we had in those days. We'll move to season 3 next although we already watched a few of those episodes. I think the kitty enjoys the show since she is always on the sofa to watch.

More as the mood strikes me.