It looks like Perfect Hair Forever has taken over Adult Swim tonight. I’m guessing now that this is their now annual April Fools joke on the viewers. I suppose this is better than last year’s farting noises during Ghost in the Shell. Hyuk Hyuk Hyuk! I never got into the Perfect Hair thing, so I’m using the time to catch up on some of my web forums.
Month: March 2007
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My Sweet Lord Canceled
Radical Islam, meet Radical Christianity! Complaints from Catholics and death threats directed at the artist, Cosimo Cavallaro, have lead to the cancelation of the My Sweet Lord exhibit which featured a nude Jesus sculpted from chocolate. This is just silly. There’s nothing wrong with a sculpture of Jesus posed as if on the cross made of chocolate. And as for being naked, well in all likelihood Jesus was naked when He was crucified. That was part of the shame and humiliation of the whole thing. Cardinal Egan should know better than to be a part of the kind of fanaticism that can only chase people away from Christ rather than lead them to a relationship with Him. Oh well, I guess he thinks that chocolate bunnies for Easter are just fine, but a sweet chocolate Jesus is just too much to bear!
Okay, this is your only warning.
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Now let’s get this all out the way right now. Col. Tigh, the Chief, Starbuck’s husband, and the President’s Chief of Staff, are all Cylons! Damn! Didn’t see that coming. Oh, and Starbuck’s alive and is going to show them the way to Earth. Of course, I suppose that is if they manage to survive the massive Cylon surprise attack that ended the final episode of the season.
Whew, that’s a lot to pack into the last episode, but it is all soooo deliciously cool. I haven’t had this kind of excitement since the cliffhangers of Babylon 5. Sadly, we won’t see how things turn out until 2008. I’m glad that, for the moment at least, it appears that Starbuck is alive and in the flesh, not in someone’s head. And I would even say, that maybe, just maybe her appearance with the Cylons is not just a coincidence. Maybe she brought them, and maybe they aren’t there to attack. And with 4 or the final 5 Cylons revealed, will the final one really turn out to be Admiral Adama, perhaps activated upon reaching Earth? Nah, that would be too easy.
Click here to join the fun in the Battlestar Galactica forums!
The Cup race at Bristol is always something I look forward to, but today is doubly special because NASCAR is debuting the Car of Tomorrow at Bristol today. The CoT is the redesigned racer that NASCAR claims will be less expensive for teams to run, safer for the drivers, and improve competition. Well, not that I don’t believe them, but talk is cheap, let’s race! Aerodynamics don’t usually play much of a role in racing on a short track like Bristol, it should be a good test of the general handling of the car. And knowing Bristol, the body shops will be getting to know these cars quite a bit better after the contact sport that is Bristol is finished today. I wonder if there’s a redesigned Dent Hammer of Tomorrow too!
Inspired somewhat by the anime music videos I’ve seen at conventions and on YouTube, I decided to try my hand at it and create an entry for the Anime Central Anime Music Video competition. Being a cheapskate, as always, I really didn’t want to buy anything new or expensive, at least not until I really know what I’m doing.
So I got started by gathering the free tools referred to in VicBond007’s Guide to Working with DVD Footage on AnimeMusicVideos.org. I then used this very good guide to create my AVI clips. I read the rest of the guide which describes how to edit the video with Adobe Premiere, but since I don’t have that, I had to fend for myself and use what I had handy.
I ended up using Windows Movie Maker 2.1 to import the AVI clips and music. (Note, I used Audacity to convert the MP3 music file to an uncompressed WAV file since the guide warned of synch issues using a compressed music source.) Windows MovieMaker could only save my video to WMV format, so I then used NeroVision Express, which came with my DVD-RW drive to create a DVD that I could play in the living room.
The end result, though, at this point, is still a rough draft, looked really good on the TV. So I’m hopeful I’ll have something that everyone will enjoy!
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Blue Wig Day
The Kaname Chidori cosplay project is officially underway! I just ordered the long blue wig, and the shoe painting last night went pretty well. And on an unrelated matter, I finally got my chocobo whistle in FFXI! ^_^ I love these costume projects, it usually takes a while to get started, but once underway, I can usually really go at it. I had originally intended to debut Chidori at Otakon, but if I can get it done soon enough, I’ll debut it at Anime Central. I didn’t make the ACEN Idol cut 🙁 , so I’ll have more time to work on cosplay projects.
The big battle we’ve all been waiting for has finally commenced, as Viacom sues Google over copyrighted content on YouTube. If the two sides don’t wimp out and settle, we may finally have an answer to the question of whether or not YouTube can be held responsible for the fact that its popularity is largely founded on the presence of use uploaded clips of copyright protected content.
I’m not a lawyer, but I would guess that as long as YouTube has not explicitly stated in any way that their business plan depends on or benefits from illegally uploaded copyrighted content. They’ve probably been fairly careful about this consciously at least. But there is little doubt that Viacom will try to subpoena thousands of internal emails (the subconscious if you will) in an attempt to show that YouTube and Google did acknowledge the dependence on what Viacom alleges is an illegal business model. In the absence of any smoking guns like this, a judge may find him/herself having to decide whether to serve the letter of the law (Google wins), or the spirit (Viacom wins).
For the last several days, since the Final Fantasy XI March Update, I’ve been having connection issues with the game. I’ve been getting R0’s while in Dangruf Wadi. Since I’m soloing there and don’t want to lose a lot of XP by getting killed, I’ve had to logout when these connection losses start happening. A lot of players have been having these issues and so far Square Enix has not been willing to own up to them, preferring to blame the ISPs. But clearly, the timing of this problem points to something that SE did in the update. I still love FFXI, but that isn’t of much use, if I cannot play the game. Perhaps it’s time to give World of Warcraft another try and maybe recycle that 40GB hard drive in my PS2. I could reclaim a lot of hard drive space in my PC and 360 too.
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Goodbye CompUSA!
Goodbye CompUSA, I’m not sure I’ll really miss you… CompUSA is closing half of its US stores, including what I believe is the last Chicago CompUSA on Chicago avenue next to the American Girl Place. I’m not sure I’ll miss them though, because over the years I’ve found that CompUSA has always been the most expensive place to buy anything. You name it, it costs more than the same thing at Micro Center. This was particularly frustrating because otherwise, CompUSA was the most convenient place to get computer hardware and supplies. I guess they just couldn’t compete, or just didn’t find their niche. In the end, it looked like they were trying to compete in the same consumer space as Best Buy or Circuit City, but without being able to offer the same kinds of discounts. Sadly, even now with the 10% to 30% discounts of the store closing sale, the prices still suck!
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FFXI March Update
Argggh! No chocobo lovin tonight, it’s time for the Final Fantasy XI March update which is going to take 3 or 4 hours tonight because of network congestion. I guess my chocobo is going to have to wait…sigh…
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Naomi Campbell, Maid To Order
Or maybe I should say ordered to maid *sweatdrop* or something like that after she’s been sentenced to mopping floors at New York’s Sanitation Department after being convicted of assaulting her housekeeper with a cell phone. I don’t usually follow this sort of thing, but hey, any excuse for a little eye candy on a cold day! Seriously, I still don’t like it that a. big name celebs usually get off easy for things that sometimes draw serious jail time for us ordinary folk, and b. sentencing people to community service gives community service a bad name. Community service is an honorable thing that all of us should be engaged in anyway. It is not a punishment! I used to mop floors after school in highschool at a nearby Catholic school for girls. The money was good, and the fringe benefits were, ahem, pretty nice. I will always love those short skirts! <3
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Damn! They Killed Starbuck!
They killed Starbuck! Those bastards! T_T I’m still a little bit in shock because while I’d heard that a major Battlestar Galactica character was going to die this season, I hadn’t expected it to be Starbuck, at least not yet. Normally, I might be a bit pissed at having a favorite character killed, but if I’ve learned anything watching the new Battlestar Galactica, it’s that even dead characters have a way of sticking around. I’m sure we’ll see Starbuck making visits to people’s heads in the future, Caprica (aka Number Six) style. I’m guessing she may be taking up residence in Apollo’s head for a while.
I actually hope I’m wrong about that though, because the whole, people in my head thing, is getting a bit over used. Given all of the hints at a special destiny for Starbuck, I’m hoping we’ll see something more imaginative and perhaps more dramatic, maybe a Cylon aided resurrection or something. However it’s handled, I doubt that we’ve seen the last of Kara Thrace.
As I’ve mentioned here before, I’ve been tempted to create my own MySpace page on a number of occasions, but always stopped short primarily for aesthetic reasons. In 10 Reasons I Didn’t Start a MySpace Account, John invites the MySpace love! His reasons include annoying music, pages with too much stuff on them, long load times, and poorly chosen backgrounds. For me, all of these are under the heading of aesthetics. Other reasons, like people getting hurt, and vapid communication, are sadly, not unique to MySpace. There’s plenty of that in the real world. In the old days, one might say that art is just imitating life, but MySpace isn’t really art. I’m afraid that MySpace, and similar sites have actually become a part of life. So it’s only natural that the failings of life should be exhibited therein.