Hawk’s Babble-Log

Starring Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Rea, Stephen Fry, and John Hurt.

From the Wachowski Bros. (Matrix fame) comes V for Vendetta. I’ve been looking forward to this since I saw the previews months ago. The movie has their “look”, after all, they got the same lighting guy who did The Matrix.

Overall, I liked the film. I liked the message of “Freedom! Forever!” I liked the relationship between V (played by Hugo Weaving) and Evey (played by Natalie Portman). Some parts I didn’t like, but I don’t want to spoil anything for you, so I’ll shut up now.

V did have a vendetta, and he got vengance, but he managed to do more than this. He managed to… oh there I go again. I’ll shut up now lest I spoil anything for you.

I’ll probably buy it when it comes out on DVD.

Starring Clive Owen, Denzel Washington, Jodie Foster, Willem Dafoe, and Chiwetel Ejiofor.

Excellent.

This is a movie primarily about a bank robbery, and how it is pulled off. But, as the movie moves along, we discover there there is more to it than just a simple bank robbery. The main bank robber is played by Clive Owen, and he is sort of narrating the thing. Denzel Washington plays the dective in charge of the “hostage situation”. Jodie Foster plays a gal who can get things done. She’s got connections. I don’t even know what to call her character.

All characters were sharp and interesting. The movie ended with me wanting more. I will buy it when it comes out on DVD because I want to see it again to see if I missed anything the first time around.

Sometimes my roommate and I get into senseless conversations. Something like this:

Roomie: Where are we?

Me: In Hollywood.

Roomie: Who are we?

Me: We’re me. And you.

Roomie: Who am I?

Me: You’re you.

Roomie: Why am I?

Me: Blah blah.

Roomie: Blah blah blah?

Me: Blah blah, blah blah blah.

Roomie: But blah blah blah blah?

Me: No, blah blah blah. And blah blah blah. But not blah blah blah blah. And vice versa.

Roomie: Oh.

You get the idea. I started receiving a gift subscription to Entertainment weekly two or so months ago. I think the magazines are getting desperate, what with all the online resources to do research ‘n stuff. It’s not hard to see why they would want to give away their hard-copy versions.

Anyway, I never was very interested in what was in this magazine, and just recently I discovered why. On the cover, they’ll have (usually) the hottest movie or TV show, and some of the actors from it. Sometimes I’m interested in this movie, so I’ll read what they have to say about it.

Here’s where it gets interesting. Or, rather, very uninteresting. The _content_ of the magazine is all this:

Blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah; blah blah blah blah.
-

I was looking for real info regarding a movie. All they had was blah blah blah opinion. And it was evaluative opinion, with lots of modifiers and adjectives, all based on the opinion of the writer. _There was no real data_ about the movie!

Now that I’ve seen this, I have absolutely no interest in the magazine whatsoever.

Has anyone else seen this in other magazines? Are they all like this?

I like to bring my music along with me when I go on a road trip. I’ve got a simple little MP3 player, but how do I get the music to the car stereo system? I found two choices: tape adaptor or a mini radio transmitter.

Let me sum this up for you: Don’t waste your money on the radio transmitter; go with the tape adaptor. If your vehicle doesn’t have a tape player, then you’re SOL (Shucks Out of Luck).

Why? Because the radio transmitter sucks ass. That’s a technical term. It sucks ass because it lacks sufficient wattage to reach your radio. This means that any other radio station can overwhelm your little transmitter–and they do. Frequently. Radio stations broadcast with MegaWatts. This little transmitter from Belkin uses MiniWatts, or possible MicroWatts. That means a small amount of watts. After all, it uses two AAA batteries. How much voltage can you get out of two AAA batteries? Not much.

When this happens, always right in the middle of the good part of your music, you’ll know why I used the technical term “sucks ass”. And, after you toss the little radio transmitter out your window, that little sucker will make a very satifying crunch as it bounces under the wheels of a big semi truck. On the brighter side, you’ll gain a feeling of happyness as you dream about the following traffic smashing the little thing into the next life where it will be reincarnated as a bobby pin (you know, something useful).

Don’t waste your money on a little radio transmitter like this Belkin. It’s a waste of money and you’ll probably never use it. The thing is worthless. I’ll probably end up throwing mine away, as I can’t find a use for it.

The tape adaptor, on the other hand, is cheaper, fits into any car tape player (at least, all the ones I’ve tried), sounds grest, and is not subject to interference. I hope this helps.

Well, it’s official: I’ve cancelled my membership with NetFlix (again) and have started up with GreenCine.

[http://www.greencine.com/](http://www.greencine.com/)

GreenCine is pronounced Green-Scene. They have _nearly_ all of the titles that NetFlix does, and their anime collection rocks. I’m going to be busy for quite some time with their anime section!

I signed up Thursday and began the tedious process of transferring my queue. My first five were sent on Friday and just showed up today, Monday. So far, they’re a little slow on the delivery. NetFlix usually gets ‘em to me in one day. Usually. I mean, when they’re not throttling me, that is.

That’s why I switched. I want to see how a service does it without throttling my usage. GreenCine seems to deliver on their promise of UNLIMITED rentals. It plainly states in their FAQ that they do not practice throttling. I decided to go with the same number of discs checked out that I was using with NetFlix; I’m at the 5-out-at-a-time program for $33.95.

The discs are packaged very well. Each disc has it’s own sleeve, just like NetFlix, then it’s wrapped in two layers of cardboard (which NetFlix does not do), then it’s put in an envelope for mailing, similar in design to NetFlix. With this kind of packaging, I don’t expect I’ll ever receive a physically broken disc (I did once in the years I was with NetFlix) and I expect that the discs I do receive will be playable.

The non-playable-disc problem is what deterred me from Blockbuster Online. Well, it was the major issue, but not the only issue. Search my blog for Blockbuster Online and you’ll see my review of that crappy service.

Imagine this: You decided to rent a movie and you really want to see it. It arrives in the mail and you invite some friends over to see it. All your friends arrive to see this movie, so you break out the drinks ‘n chips ‘n snacks ‘n stuff. Then you pop that disc into your high-quality DVD player and settle down into your couch or your favorite chair or whatever. The movie begins, gets about half-way through, then stops. Your DVD player skips all over the place, but won’t continue the damn disc. Even chapter-skipping forward doesn’t work.

What now? Do you calmly tell your friends that they get to do something else with their time? Imagine the reaction if this happened in a movie theater.

This situation doesn’t happen often with NetFlix. Occasionally I’ll get a bad disc, but it’s not enough to make me slather some peanut butter on that DVD, hold it firmly in both hands, and eat the disc out of spite. That’s how bad it got with BlockBuster Online. Plus, their website sucks ass. There’s that technical term again: sucks ass. Means it was bad. Really bad.

Anyway… now that I’m with GreenCine, I expect I’ll be staying a while. So far, things are good. I’ve already got a few hundred discs in my queue, and these guys don’t limit me to 500 like NetFlix does! I can put almost 10,000 discs in my queue! Ha HA! It’s going to take me _minutes_ to load my queue into my browser!

I also like the sense of community with GreenCine. I can setup my own profile, build lists, write reviews, email other members, etc. With NetFlix, you can write reviews, but that’s about it. With GreenCine, I was able to find a huge number of excellent lists of stuff I’m interested in, such as all the old Zatoichi (blind swordsman) movies, and fantastic lists of good anime. Also, the rating system with GreenCine is from 1 to 10, and with NetFlix, it’s 1 to 5.

I like GreenCine much better so far. As always, I’ll keep you updated!

I got a Neverlate 7-Day Alarm Clock a month or so ago. I got it from [ThinkGeek](http://www.thinkgeek.com/). Just click and search for ‘neverlate’.

I just love this little alarm clock! It’s the most perfect alarm clock I’ve ever owned. I only say this because I can’t think of anything that it doesn’t do that I want it to do. Well, there is one small thing, but I’ll mention that later. Now, on with the pics:

This is the front. It’s got a green back-lit LED display. You can see me holding it so you can get an idea of it’s size; it’s pretty small. A nice feature of the back-lighting is that it’s only fully bright when there is activity. Otherwise, it’s half-dimmed and soft. Those two knobs on the front are the tuning and the volume for the radio. The radio’s speakers kinda “vent” out the bottom. Sounds pretty good, actually. I mean, for a clock radio.

In the back there’s a slot for a 9-volt backup battery. We had a power failure here about three weeks ago. The power was out for over two hours. But this clock never even noticed. When I got back, I didn’t even have to set it back up again. It even had the right time.

Most of the controls are on the top. This is a close-up of the top and all the buttons and knobs ‘n stuff. This thing is easy to use, easy to set, easy to turn off, easy to snooze, etc. And here’s another nice feature: nap. It’s got a nap timer, which basically means a countdown timer with an alarm. You see that little black ring around the top knob? That’s how you set the alarms and timers and such. It’s a sliding ring which makes loud clicking sounds when you turn it. The main knob on top is for setting the modes and for setting each individual alarm.

Another nice feature is the snooze button on the front-top. It’s a nice, big, tough snooze button so you can whack it hard trying to get the dang thing to shut the hell up so you can get that additional vital 15 minutes of precious sleep. BUT, it’s also a preview button! If you hit this button when the alarm is not going off, the thing will give you the time and day of the _next_ alarm. So if you hit it when you’re going to bed @ 10pm, and you’ve got the alarm set for tomorrow at 6:30am, it’ll display the day, the time, and “REV”,which means review, I guess. So there’s never any doubt as to when it’s going to go off next. There may be disdain, but never doubt.

The best feature is it’s 7 independant alarms, one for each day of the week. And they all can be either on or off. And they all can be for any time. I got this because I was a workin’ stiff but good. I worked for Samy’s Camera as their WebMaster. I was also part of MIS doing Linux type stuff. So I figured that this alarm clock would be great because I got in the habit of sleeping in on the weekends. Who doesn’t, right?

The alarm clock arrived the day the entire web department got laid off. How’s that for irony? Yup, all both of us were laid off because the man decided to out-source the entire thing.

But still, I love this alarm clock! This little guy does it all! Oh yeah, except for one thing: the buzzer doesn’t have a volume control. Yup, that’s all I was wanting. The volume control on the front is for the radio only. Trust me, I tried it. It has no effect on the buzzer. Or should I call it a beeper? It’s more of a BEEP-BEEP-BEEP type thing.

Anyway, that’s it. I love it, and I’m going to take a sledgehammer to my old alarm clock.

Greetings all,

I got a phone call from “Domain Support” the other day. The caller ID was “+001819″, which is probably some kind of VOIP network (VOIP means Voice Over Internet Protocol).

The lady wanted to verify my name and address for one of my domains “masterslacker.com” and get my FAX number so that she could send me some “important offers”. I knew exactly what was happening as soon as she told me she was calling from “Domain Support”. She would not give out her company name, or if she did, it was something generic like “Domain Registry”.

I told her that I was not interested and thanked her for calling. She said, “Okay.” and that was that.

WARNING: Your real domain host would probably never call you directly. Virtually anyone can get your contact info from your WHOIS domain info. Don’t be fooled by people from “your domain registrar”. I get such letters all the time from “Domain Registry of America” about my soon-to-be-expired domains. This is simply another company trying to register my domain and take it away form my current registrar. It’s really rather sneaky because it looks legitimate.

If you’re not sure if it’s your actual domain registrar calling you, then hang up and call them. Then you’ll know for sure.

I’ve had my domains registered at about three different domain hosts now, and I’ve had domains since the mid-to-late 1990’s. NONE of them have ever called me. They all use email. And if I do get a notice in my email about a domain expiring or whatever, I go to my domain registrar’s website manually (by entering the domain name myself) rather thank clicking through any links in the email. That way I know I’m going to the right website.

Same with Paypal, BTW. I’ll usually NEVER click-through a link in my email. Because I’m using Mozilla as my email client, I can see where the link goes to, regardless of any URL-hiding techniques. These techniques are useful for an email client such as Outlook, so I’m safe by using Mozilla. But still, I usually don’t click-through email links.

Just now, I got an email from “Domain Notification Central” with a big title “FINAL NOTICE”. It’s a very official-looking notice, complete with company URL and address, 800 phone number, and a notice tracking number. It is for one of my domains with a different TLD (top-level domain): masterslacker.us

So they’re not trying to switch me from my current domain, but they are trying to get some business by registering a slightly different new domain. It’s not quite as bad as others I’ve received. But I think the “FINAL NOTICE” on top is a bit cheesy. It’s also got some legal code at the bottom. Are they trying to make it look more official by quoting legal code?

Anyway… it seems domain registrars are getting _desparate_. Beware. I hope this helps.

Starring Milla Jovovich, Cameron Bright, William Fichtner, Nick Chinlund, and Sebastien Andrieu.

Well, the good stuff first: I just _love_ seeing a hot chick kick ass! When I saw the preview, I saw a sci-fi futuristic hot chick kicking ass, and I knew I was gonna see the movie.

I did not have huge expectations other than that. So the movie really delivered for me. The chick (Milla Jovovich) is hot and she knows how to kick ass, and she does kick ass all over the place. The special effects are excellent. The gadgets are fantastic! I’ve gotta get me some of those. She’s got dimention compressors, gravity shifters, oh, and don’t forget the guns. Lots of guns. To call this chick deadly would be an understatement of colossal proportions.

Now the bad stuff: The story–no, rather, the writing was bad. Really bad. In fact, I’d have to say it sucked ass. That’s a technical term: sucked ass. And it wasn’t just bad, but very confusing, demonstrating that the writers had not figured out what to do or where to take this chick. So they have her running around the futuristic city kicking ass left and right in scene after scene.

I kept cocking my head to one side and thinking to myself, “Huh?”

So, if you see it (and don’t pay full price unless you like watching Milla kick ass for 90 minutes), don’t hold high expectations as to the story or the writing.

That said, I will buy it when it comes out on DVD, but I ain’t gonna pay too much for it.

So, it’s been about a week now, and I’ve made a total of 5 gallons. I seem to be drinking a little less than a half-gallon per day, so I can easily keep up with both my needs, and my roommates needs (if he were to go near the stuff). The total loss of water (steam loss) in the receiving tank is about four ounces / gallon. That’s pretty darn good efficiency! I’m very pleased.

The water tastes great! I’m very pleased with the results. However, sometims I can pick up a slight plastic taste. I’m not sure if it is from the little plastic bottles I use, or the receiving jug. I’ll let ya know as I use it more and more.

Here’s what the tank looks like after distilling five gallons of L.A. water. Can you say YUCK?! It smells really bad, too. There is a strong amonia smell mixed in as well. I took more pics, but they’re all about the same. The interesting thing about a distiller is that I _could_ continue to use it like this and it would still make perfectly pure water! I love it.

Okay, time to clean it out. These are two animations of the cleaning process. The directions say to put in two tablespoons of the cleaning stuff in a full tank (actually, over fill it a little). Now leave the top off and plug it in until it starts to boil. Leave it like that for 15-20 mins and then dump out the water and wash it clean. By the way, the second animation is what it looks like inside when the unit is in normal operation–but you sure don’t wanna pull the top off and take a look! You’ll burn yourself from the steam.

Here’s what it looked like after I was done scrubbing it out with dish soap and a rough green sponge.

BTW, in the instructions, this procedure is recommended once a month. HA! I’ll probably have to do this once a week. After all, this is L. A. water we’re dealing with here. L. A. water is… how can I put this gently… BAD. As in NOT GOOD. But, on the other hand, it probably won’t kill ya. I’ve been showering in the stuff for years.

It took about 30-35 mins to get it boiling from hot water straight out of the tap. Then I let it go 20 more mins, so that’s about 50 mins total. That ran up 0.45 KiloWatt Hours of power. No problemo. Do the math on how much this cost–if you want; I’m not going to bother with it.