Ringtones
I’ve discovered, to my surprise, that I generally prefer MIDI ringtones to MP3 ringtones. Perhaps it has a little to do with the tiny speaker they’re coming from, and in part because a MIDI just sounds more like a phone-ring sound to me.
My current favorites: katamari.mid – DoctorWho2006.mid – dune.mid
I like technology that beeps.
Fold-up technology
New phone now. At first, the RAZR wasn’t performing any of the tricks I wanted it to, but I fiddled with it a bit, and now GMail works, and I’ve figured out a way to get my own ringtones onto it without buying ones from Sprint or purchasing a Bluetooth dongle for the Mac. (I might try to get the dongle anyway, since I can then do calendar synchronizing.)
I also found “One More Time“, the first cut off Daft Punk’s “Interstella 5555 (The 5tory Of The 5ecret 5tar 5ystem)” on YouTube. I’m still deciding whether I like the music (think it’s a yes), but the video was throwing me some serious late 80’s flashback with its Leiji Matsumoto-y goodness. Gonna have to try to see the whole thing, now.
Speaking of anime, rattrap gave a good review to Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles, which I had just recently heard about on the RDF Underground podcast. The podcasters agree with him that the character designs for the ladies are a bit mammary-focused, but I guess they were shooting for what they felt was an authentic modern anime look. Still, it’s supposed to hold up well, and I’ll be adding it to my collection when I can swing the cash, even if (like The Sentinels) it uses Alphas instead of Valkyries.
IMDB Justice and the STS
Wil Wheaton is reviewing old ST: TNG episodes for a website known as TV Squad. He’s just reviewed Justice, and my trivia sense tingled; Brenda Bakke, the half-naked actress who gleefully welcomes Worf as the “Huge One”, also played Nim, the Texas Air Ranger in Gunhed.
This, of course, contributes nothing at all to your day.
Slighlty more interestingly, astronomer Phil Plait has posted that tonight’s 9:35 launch of the Space Shuttle will be visible over most of the US’ east coast. A link to a similar opportunity from ’97 suggests that Norfolk viewers might be able to see the STS reach 12 degrees over the south-southeast horizon, while Roanoke area space buffs will only see the engine glow for 5 degrees (possibly discounting intervening mountains).
(I’ll probably forget to go look, though.)
You think Spock had problems?
A few people who have seen “Superman Returns” have wondered in my presence about a certain plot point from the movie. I don’t want to say too much more about this plot point, for it could be considered a bit of a spoiler, but here is an article by a Famous Science Fiction Writer on the subject.
(The article doesn’t help, but is kinda funny anyway.)
EDIT: Okay, two comments here have suggested that it is a BIG spoiler. So, really. Don’t click the link unless you have seen the movie or don’t care about spoilers.
Neo, check the dictionary under “gullible”
What if, in fact, the Matrix really was the “real world” and that the world of Zion and the tunnels was a computer simulation designed by Morpheus and his cronies to produce bands of duped, highly-trained international terrorists?
Ehh, maybe not.
Game designer robin-d-laws is running a play-by-poll RPG in his journal where the reader is cast as an inmate of a psychiatric ward who’s the only person able to fight the demonic “operators” that his “angels” have warned him of. The beauty of his storyline is that, after 30 installments, I’m still not sure if the “operators” are real, or figments of the character’s psychosis. I’m not even sure if I’ll get to find out. Gripping stuff 🙂
Dinged lvl 52 with my gnome mage last night. I can finally see the endgame from here. Ironically enough, I’ve soloed almost the whole time (a little less so recently), and the endgame is all about 5-40 member parties. I’m not really sure I’ll be much use, or have much fun in that part; I may just go back to leveling some of my alts, and wait for the expansion. Or I might find out that I have untapped potential as a Raid Master. We’ll see.
TCon 23 report
Some cool things about Technicon 23:
Giving rattrap his combined holiday present for the next several years.
Playing the WoW board game with jsciv, meiran, and candidevoltaire; then buying a copy.
A copy of The Heroic Trio from kittykatya.
Opening the wrong door and accidentally joining this year’s Vile Skit.
Being practically the only character in vileone‘s LARP that was exactly what he said he was: no more, no less.
Friday dinner seated between Dwight, raininva, and Christy.
Friday night panels that went Most Excellently. (Some details soon in a filtered post, heh heh.)
A Vile Script that forced me to wrestle with rainbowsaber. (Oh, shucks.)
Helping southernsinger perform “The Dragon & The Lady” for Holly Lisle.
Late Saturday dinner and great conversation with meiran.
Thanks to trenn, chown -R us:us yourbase.
Frequent backrubby morale- and energy-boosts from shrewlet.
Two boxes full of new reading material from the Auction.
Cool artwork from kittenchan and ranchonmars.
It’s my 20th Technicon.
—–
Some less-cool things about Technicon 23:
It’s my 20th Technicon.
Not enough time to be in Whose Con Is It?
Long drives from and to Norfolk.
Not enough quality time with many friends.
My lousy Simon Cowell imitation.
A body that gave out too early on Saturday night. (For once, stomach issues rather than exhaustion.)
Our air mattress developing a hole.
Not enough time for after-con dinner in Blacksburg. (But a good one with Bert & Meche in Salem.)
—–
I’d call TCon 23 a success, for my part. Well done, nius, and thanks for the good weekend!
Making adaptations
It has always been a good thing for my spare time that World of Warcraft won’t install on my laptop. (Actually, I did make it install one time, but only got one video frame every 4 seconds or so, so off it went again.) Unfortunately, Monday night a friend’s casual reference reminded me that the laptop’s specs were well up to another piece of software, and last night, I put Starcraft on it. Maybe now I can finish the darn Terran campaign and play the other two-thirds of the game.
Blizzard does not own me. But I think it’s trying to acquire controlling interest.
The conspiracy theorist in me wonders if Alan Moore and the Wachowskis have manufactured this little tiff they are having just to make sure V for Vendetta retains a brighter blip on the geek radar. As someone recently pointed out, any author who has sold thousands of copies of professional fanfic (I refer to League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on when bitching about other creative folks modifying their characters and storylines.
You know, a book is not a movie is not a comic is not a TV show. They all have different rules and must make adaptations if they are to flourish in a changed environment. “Spamalot” is hardly a scene-for-scene copy of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, for example. If SciFi ever makes that rumored miniseries of “Ringworld”, they’ll have to change quite a bit to keep a good novel from being very dull television. (Knowing SciFi, they probably won’t – they’ll follow the advice of some uber-fan who wants a line-by-line copy.) I wish fans were better at judging material on its own merits, instead of what they wanted the material to be. (I also wish more fans understood the difference between “This is poor quality” and “I personally don’t like this much.”)
Speaking of which, some website recently applauded the Enterprise-D as one of the most iconic spaceships in visual science fiction, making the note that “not a lot of thought was put into the original television Enterprise.” I hope the ghost of Matt Jeffries hunts this person down and explains a thing or three to him.
M for Monday
raininva and I went to see V for Vendetta yesterday. Considering the amount of whining that I’d seen at various ‘Net sites, I was surprised to enjoy it a great deal. It never went all stupid on me, and it practically begged for thought and argument about its ‘message’, rather than blind acceptance.
I’m really looking forward to Technicon. It looks like I’ll be a very busy camper that weekend, but that’s okay – I won’t get bored 🙂
I’m working my way through my yearly LOTR re-read. I’ve got a lot of new books on the shelves waiting for me, but I needed the familiar lands of Middle-Earth for a while. I haven’t made it a page farther into “Wicked”, which tells you how gripping I’ve found it.
And I’m really done with 40-50 degree temperatures. It needs to get warm, and stay warm.
The “Are You Unique?” meme
I’ll try this one out, since it was an interesting mental exercise.
Name a CD you own that you think no-one else on your friends list does.
Matsuri Za: Matsuri Daiko (taiko drumming)
Signed by the artists, who were performing at Epcot while raininva and I were there.
Name a book you own that you think no-one else on your friends list does.
Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
A book on number theory, surrealist art, classical music, computer programming, cellular biology, and more. Not light bedtime reading.
Name a movie you own on DVD/VHS/whatever that you think no-one else on your friends list does.
“J-Men Forever”
This was a HARD one. Movies are social for me, so nearly every one I have was purchased off a recommendation or was a gift from someone else who already has it. (I assume we’re excluding those films which celebrate the inventiveness humanity brings to the act of reproduction.)
Name a place that you have visited that you think no-one else on your friends list has.
The Ghiradelli Chocolate factory in S.F.
My first choice was the National Geographic Society building in D.C., but it’s just too close by, and I know too many intellectual types who might have swung by there 🙂
Name a piece of technology or any sort of tool you own that you think no-one else on your friends list has.
An Apple Newton MessagePad
This one, OTOH, I feel quite confident about!
Somebody call Lunch Rescue
Last night, for no clear reason, my energy levels just evaporated. I had plenty of food, caffeine, and good company… but suddenly I just wanted to lie there, watch TV, and then go to bed. This morning was the same… I had to drag myself from bed to shower to desk. I only now feel like my head is clearing and my body is beginning to function again.
The main fallout from this is that my lunch for today is still sitting at home, neatly packed on top of the kitchen pantry.
D’oh.
I did get to watch our recorded copy of Thunderbirds over the holidays. Frankly, I expected it to be remarkably lame, but it wasn’t bad. There were some minor issues, but the production design was great – when the kids were climbing over the auxiliary craft, the vehicles all looked like Gerry Anderson models blown up to life-size – and the actress playing Lady Penelope understood that she was supposed to have fun with the role. I’d pick up the DVD eventually, even if the hardware didn’t get enough screen time.
