Kevin's Musings

We are having a pretty lazy weekend. We saw The 40 Year Old Virgin, which was really very good and Red-Eye which was also really very good. If you like suspense oriented movies you will like Red-Eye. If you like comedies and can handle a little nudity and two hours or so of jokes oriented toward sex and virginity, you will like Virgin, but, if nudity the topic of sex offends you, you should probably skip Virgin.

I bought a component video cable (by Mad Catz) for the PS2 last night at Best Buy for $10. The cable I got will connect the Xbox and PS2 via a single set of component cables and audio cables. So, I don’t have to switch anything around to play either Xbox or PS2, just turn one of them on. The down side is that it doesn’t support optical audio out, but, I am only using 3.1 audio right now, so, until I hook my surround speakers back up this really isn’t an issue. The AMAZING thing to me is that they also sell a PS2 component video cable at Best Buy by Psyclone (or some such) for $60. The $60 cable seemed different in that it was 12 feet long instead of 7 feet long and it supported only PS2 (not a second head for Xbox). These Psyclone cables must be some kind of Monster cable (in case you were wondering, it is my opinion that the Monster Cable thing is a complete scam). Completely not worth the money. Best Buy is probably raking it in because they put the Psyclone cables where you would expect the video cables to be and the Mad Catz cables “someplace else” (I think I found it by the Xbox stuff). Anyway, what a scam. I also had to ask an employee how much the Psyclone cable was because they didn’t have it marked on the shelf.

So, I now have the PS2 hooked up in the living room which is better than playing in the bedroom on the bed.

Ratchet and Clank is going great. I am easily 4/5ths done with it and it has been a lot of fun. My only complaint is that in some areas (notably later in the game) it is getting ridiculously hard. The actual game-play isn’t generally that hard, but, when you die they have a tendency to put you really far back instead of saving your progress at reasonable points. On the most recent level I was playing there were three objectives and if you didn’t complete the entire objective you would have to start completely from the beginning and the level is pretty big, so, that can become a drag. BUT, I finally passed it (thanks, Action Replay — I hate to resort to using the AR, but, when you have played the same area 15 times it gets old!).

Not sure what the rest of the afternoon will be, but, something interesting, I am sure.

Until next time.

We saw a sneak preview of the new Paul Reiser movie tonight, The Thing About My Folks. It is written by and starring Paul, and, if you have read his stuff before you can really tell he wrote it… it really feels like his voice throughout the movie. It was a fun, heart-string tugging kind of film (middle age-ish man better getting to know his elderly father during a difficult period in the father’s life). We enjoyed the story overall, but, it occasionally (at least to me) felt somewhat unpolished and somewhat linear. Overall, if you look at the previews and say “that is my kind of movie,” you will probably enjoy it, but, you probably won’t miss much watching it on DVD versus the theater. If you see the preview and say “oh, gross,” then certainly skip it (this is a good rule of thumb, generally). If you are on the border, just rent it later. Not a “must see in the big screen blockbuster” but not bad, either.

I use WordPress for my blog. This is the third blog software I have tried and I think I have decided this is the software to stick with. I think it has the bulk of the (free) market share, lots of good themes, lots of good plugins. The two lacking features are (1) a WYSIWYG editor and (2) a spell checker. The WYSIWYG editor is supposedly coming in the next version. I’ll wait for that. The spell checker is a slightly different story.

There are at least 2 or 3 spell checker plugins for WordPress. I have tried them. I didn’t really like they way they worked. The ones I played with didn’t seem to handle tags in the post very well (i.e., putting html in the formatting, links, etc.). Notably, when I posted from Flickr it the spell checkers would often rewrite the HTML. So, I gave up on WordPress and Spell Checking. I was just using Ultraedit to do my spell checking. Until I found some postings talking about using Firefox browser plugins to do spell checking. I found two great plugins to do this!

The first one is Google Toolbar for Firefox. This is really slick. With a click of a button in the toolbar you can spellcheck any form controls on the page. Presumably it uses AJAX to do the spell checking. It is nice, lets you have your own dictionary, etc. The spell checking is done right within the page you are working on. I highly recommend this extension.

The second one is Spellbound – Spellchecker for Firefox. It is also really slick. With this, you right click in a form control and select Check Spelling. The only real minus (or plus) for Spellbound is that it uses its own window to do the spell checking. Spellbound has the advantage that it can use a bunch of different dictionaries, but, because of that it takes an extra step to setup — you must not only install the plugin but also find and install the dictionary that you want.

Which one do I like better, which will I end up using? I am not sure. I will play with both and see. Kudos to Firefox and the extension developers for making these kind of technologies possible.

We went and saw March of the Penguin’s… it was excellent. I would recommend this to anybody who isn’t afraid to see documentaries. The footage they got and the description of the lives of the penguins was incredible. Really an excellent film.

Played some more Ratchet and Clank, still having lots of fun with it. I may be like 50% finished? I played quite a bit this weekend.

Until next time…

I have all but given up on Jak II. I actually took it down to Gamestop to consider selling it along with some other games I have finished or haven’t played in forever and they would only give me something like $3 for it, so, I just kept it, I may pick it up again, but… It just saddens me that Jak and Daxter was such a spot on, perfect game and Jak II is so completely different. They had the perfect formula and just weren’t happy. It is odd to me that it gets such great reviews and I just disagree. Maybe if I get further into the game it will be better? Not sure.

So, I popped in Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando, which I picked up a couple of weeks ago… not realizing it was the second game in the series. I played it for about an hour or two and just loved it. It is a true platformer like Jak and Daxter was, unlike Jak II. After I realized it was the second game in the series I went down to Gamestop and got the first Ratchet and Clank for $10.

While I was there I traded in my PS2 for a used slim PS2. Wow, the new design is just stunningly small. I knew they were smaller but slim doesn’t even describe it. Trading in a few games and the old PS2 I got the slim one and Ratchet and Clank for no money (and a small credit), which was kind of cool.

So, I am now playing the first Ratchet and Clank and loving it. I hope R&C don’t wig out on me and go GTA in the 3rd or 4th game (4th game due out in a couple months, I think). Don’t get me wrong, GTA is a fun game, but, they should let GTA be GTA.

Oh, and I saw The Skeleton Key last night. I really enjoyed it. It’s a voodoo/mystery/suspense thing. Not gory, kinda creepy, worth seeing if your into that kind of thing. Next movie is probably Dark Water.

Until next time…

I saw The Devil’s Rejects last night. If you have any suspicion this won’t be your kind of movie, you are probably right — don’t go see it. If you don’t enjoy violent-bloody-romp-fests this isn’t your kind of movie. All that said… I loved it. It was darn near perfect in every way for the kind of movie that it is. The dialog was campy and spot on, the visuals and effects were great, the acting was exactly what it should be. Casting was great. I can’t recall a single thing I would have changed about the film. Kudos to Zombie. Off to listen to La Sexorcisto-Devil Music Vol. 1, my favorite Zombie album.

We had a nice weekend. Went to the water park for part of the day then visited a couple of book stores looking for a JUnit book. On Sunday we went into the city to SP&SA, went to see Broken Flowers, hung out in Central Park, and walked back to the train. It was a nice weekend.

Broken Flowers was very funny, very interesting, and though provoking. It doesn’t explain everything, but, it doesn’t try to. It is a movie about the journey, not the destination. All that said, if Lost in Translation was lost on you, this probably will be too.

On Monday we went to dinner with my old boss. She and her husband were in town after helping their daughter move. We had a nice dinner and a walk to and through Times Square.

This weekend will probably be a “catch up on violent movies” weekend. Looking forward to Devil’s Rejects and one or two others. I have passes to a free screening of Whale Rider on Thursday night, so, I may see that as well.

I picked Jak II back up again tonight and I continue to feel that it is nicely done, but, nowhere near as good as the first game. They needlessly upped the difficulty not by making the game itself harder, instead, they just the increased distance between save points. This is frustrating because when you have to redo a section over and over you are often set way back. I also don’t really like the driving parts of this game. If I wanted a driving game I would have gotten a driving game. What I wanted was a platformer, like the first one. Yes, the first one had driving segments, but, this game is trying so hard to be “Jak + GTA III” that it is riddled with driving sections.

Until next time…

This week I am working with JFreeChart to generate some dynamic charts from within a Tapestry web application I am working on. This is a nice, open source charting tool. It seems to be quite flexible. While it probably isn’t nearly as feature rich a charting package as something like Excel, for instance it has no facility that I could find to put error bars on a bar chart, it is pretty easy to modify and extend so I was able to add error bars to my bar charts. I am still learning it and have barely scraped its surface, but, I like it.

On the lighter note, Gas Powered Games released the demo for Dungeon Siege 2 last night. I was a big Dungeon Siege fan so I downloaded it… At 1.4GB this is one monster demo. I found a torrent of it and was able to fetch it in about 55 minutes. I installed it and played it for about 30 minutes. I discovered no problems or glitches. It looks great and plays great, the game should be a blast. The only kicker is that I am really used to the interface from the first game and they have changed some of it. I haven’t determined yet if the changes are good, bad, or just different, but, I am impressed and will play more. Changes were inevitable or people would have complained it was just an expansion pack. At least most (or all) of the hot keys are the same. I’ll almost definitely buy the game.

I just found out that the nifty program Konfabulator is now free. Check it out, pretty spiffy. I mostly just use it because it has a cool looking weather widget, but, you also shouldn’t overlook the ForecastFox weather plugin for Firefox, which I just love.

On Saturday we spent the day at Six Flags Great America riding roller coasters, a lot of fun. On Sunday we came into the city, visited J&R (big electronics shop with a notable Internet presence) then saw The Aristocrats. J&R was a little disappointing. Yeah, it was big and they have nearly everything, I will probably be back, but, it is fractured into a big-ish store and a bunch of smaller stores. We had to keep going inside and outside, no consistency on how nice the stores were, what the temperature was, etc. Just kind of annoying. Finally, I wanted to buy something… so they give you the item and a hand written sales slip and have you go to the cashier, but, there were very few cashiers so the lines were really line. We wandered around and ended up on another floor and tried to pay for the item there… nope, you have to pay for the item in the area where you picked it up. Sheesh. I just gave them back the item and decided to buy elsewhere. Just too much hassle. I can’t believe in this day and age they want things to be so difficult. Their prices weren’t great, either. B&H Photo and Video totally has J&R beat.

The Aristocrats was hilarious, we laughed and laughed, but, it is not a movie for everyone. Many people wouldn’t make it 30 minutes into the movie, finding it totally offensive. If you have the right sense of humor you will just love it. It will likely get more of a cult following as it is only in NYC and LA right now, and in a few weeks it is slated only for limited release. DVD may be where it gets most of its viewings.

Finally, we stopped into a Whole Foods Market. What a great place. If you are from Albuquerque it is kind of like a Wild Oats on steroids. What a great selection of stuff. Previosuly I have visitied a Gourmet Garage, but, Whole Foods has much more. Neat place.

Until next time…

The baseball game was a lot of fun. The Yankees beat the Twins 4-0. For discounted seats they were really good… We had a great view of the field almost directly in the home base/first base line (on the home base side). The seats are arranged at a very steep angle so even the higher up seats feel close to the action, it seems. My only complaint about the seat was there was an aisle a few rows in front of us and people kept walking in our view. The food was ridiculously expensive so we skipped that. One odd thing, getting into the stadium was a real chore… it turns I could not take my messenger bag in with me (or the DVD player inside the bag). For some reason all electronics other than cameras appear to be forbidden. I had to “check” my bag for $5 at the bowling alley across the street. Deb was allowed to take her purse, but, the items in her other bag (some water, snacks) had to be transferred to a clear plastic bag (which they provided). I thought I saw a sign that stated no outside food or beverages but they didn’t seem to care.

For my work email, I changed from using Mozilla Thunderbird to using Google’s GMail and I must say I am very impressed. I still use Fastmail for my personal mail and don’t plan to switch anytime soon, but, GMail is a lot better than I initially thought. Both suit my needs nicely but for different reasons. Fastmail offers IMAP, so I can easily use my Treo 650 to get Push-Email using Chatteremail. GMail’s Labels, Archiving, and Conversations works great for work purposes. Both have great web interfaces, but, GMail’s small-device web interface is much better, so, on my Treo I use Chatteremail for my personal email but I can use GMail’s web interface to view my work email well. My biggest complaint with GMail is that while I can set the “Reply-To:” address to anything I would like, I cannot set the “From:” address. Also, as I have a ton of old messages already in Fastmail so I am not likely to migrate any time soon. Even if I wanted to migrate, the only tool I have found that could do it would partially loose the date on the message, which is a drag.

Finally, in my free time I have started playing with C# again. I tried some of the different GMail new email notification programs, but, wasn’t happy with any of them… I really like FastCheck, program that works with Fastmail and want something like that, so, after I discovered the GMail API I just started working on my own. It is going really well and the bulk of the functionality is finished, I just need to do a bit more work. Maybe in a few days I will post it for download somewhere.

Until next time…