Transformers

This may contain a weak spoiler or two.

I go to the movies only about once every few months nowadays. My seasonal trip to the theatre took me to Transformers last night. Oh boy. Lots of crazy animation, a few explosions and a whole heap of transformations! The most AMAZING transformation of the movie, though, was the how the movie transformed my childhood joy into a pile of crap. So disappointing. I know it may be a little shocking to hear that a Michael Bay film lacked and semblance of soul, but, alas, it did. It wasn't that I was expecting anything too deep or moving, but it would have been nice to care a little about the main characters (or ANY characters for that matter). I guess it is good to see that some aspect of the 2-D original cartoon series was preserved in the flatness of the characters. Megatron wasn't in the movie much, but he had way more personality than anyone/thing in the movie. I almost wanted him to destroy the earth. Oh, spoiler alert: he doesn't destroy the earth.

Another interesting thing to look out for is the treatment of African-Americans in the film. There are a few black characters, a car salesman, a computer hacker, a soldier, and one of the transformers, Jazz, talks like a street stereotype. I'll just point you to this other blog post to get a more in depth understanding of Bay's treatment of these characters. Spoiler alert: To that, I'd only add that Jazz is the only Autobot ("good" transformer) that doesn't survive. For fun, take a look at how the Latino soldier and the Indian(?) phone operator characters.

More than meets the eye indeed.

Max memory in Toshiba Satellite 1955-S803

Just a quick note about the laptop I use at work--a Tosihba Satellite 1955-S803. It is a bit old (2004?) with a Pentium 4. Anyway, the documentation I found online said this thing has a maximum 1GB of memory. It comes standard with 2 256MB sticks. Things were sluggish and the only memory I had available was a 1GB stick, so I popped it in place of one of the 256s and thought to myself: "Self, you should just leave that other 256 in there and see what the heck happens." I listened to myself. I assumed that nothing too bad would happen. Worst case I figured that the motherboard hardware just wouldn't recognize anything over 1GB, but would make use of up to that amount. Too my delight, Linux booted up just fine and checking /proc/meminfo showed me the full 1.25 GB was recognized. Awesome. So the moral of this engrossing tale is that you can't always trust the info from the folks selling you the equipment. Sometimes you can trust your overall knowledge of computer architecture. Now, I wouldn't try and shove all kinds of stuff that doesn't belong, but this was benign enough to try. As a quick aside, I think the system will take up to the full 4GB if I had 2 2GB sticks available. If I ever try that, I'll be sure to post about it. I know you can't wait.

Brushing

Things are not looking good. A couple weeks ago I got a haircut. Something I do now once every couple months I think. I used to get no haircuts. Then in the Peace Corps I went to a buzz cut every 6 months. In the intervening years, I have reached my current rate. If I extrapolate properly, when I am 54, I will be getting a haircut every 13 minutes.

But my haircuts aren't the cause of today's very important blog entry. You may want to sit down for this. Actually, you should most always sit down when using a computer, so forget that last piece of advice. I bought a hair brush today. Yikes! Gives me shivers just thinking about it! Luckily I haven't used it yet. I used to have a brush back in the days when I never cut my hair (man, that was a sweet ponytail). But since then, I haven't bothered with combs or brushes (or rollers or blow dryers or any other such hair styling implement).

Anyway, that's it for now. Wish me luck with the new brush... I'll need it.

I've got to discuss Yves

OK, so I am vegetarian. I'm not a lifelong vegetarian though. If you spend more than 10 minutes with my grandpa, he'll surely tell you about how many pork chops I could put away at an early age. Mmmmm, pork chops. Anyway, the point is that I really like meat products. I crave meatiness quite often. To satiate these urges, I'll buy the occasional meatless meat product. I would do the "meatless meatballs = just balls" joke here, but it has been played out (I wouldn't stoop so low). By the way, the Gardenburger meatballs are the best of the lot. But I'm not here to talk about balls (ha! I stooped!).

Tonight I tried the Yves Beef Skewers. Oh man. They weren't good. I tried to overlook the visual nastiness (see photo), but it was still nasty. I will avoid a written description of how the stuff looked and just provide a picture. I think I should have a "write the caption" contest for this stuff. Please comment if you have a good caption for the skewer picture. I have about 37 I could think of off the top of my head.

Anyway, I don't recommend this stuff. Pretty nasty.

Censorship, new millenium style

I think lots of folks have linked to this, but I don't think there can be too many links to The Top 25 Censored Stories of 2007. I just spent over 45 minutes scanning the list and reading a few of the rather detailed descriptions provided by faculty and students of Sonoma State University.

Now, I am pretty liberal (and by "pretty", I mean shockingly handsome), but I still try and read things with some objectivity (I fail sometimes). But I also understand that wanting to hear all sides of a story doesn't mean that every side deserves equal weight. The synapses don't encapsulate everything about these stories, but they shed light on many important facets that aren't reported as heavily as they need to be.

In terms of politics and justice and such, I have always been conflicted between two points. First, it is in many ways our responsibility as democratic citizens to understand what is going on in our country and world. Second, there are so many stories and sources it is difficult to get the information that is necessary to gain that understanding. The second point is what makes it so easy to ignore what is happening in the world.

Now I may be babbling a little. The gist is, take the time to at least read the headlines in the list. Hopefully you'll be tempted to read about a few of the stories that we don't hear for one reason or another.

Junk Phone Calls

So for the past three weeks I have been getting a DAILY phone call from some company called "USA Meds Pharmacy" asking for Alana. Apparently they are trying to see if Alana wants some quality, low-cost medication. That is just swell. Oh, did I mention that I live alone and am not named Alana? Not so swell. I point this out to them every time and every time they tell me they will "take the number off of the database".

I am fairly certain that I am on the National Do-Not Call list, but to be certain, I followed the easiest instructions to register again: call 1-888-382-1222. I recommend that you call from the number you want on the list and take the 2 minutes to make sure you aren't getting unwanted calls.

Now the interesting part. I am expecting another call tomorrow (and the next day and the next day). I am going to try telling the guy "yeah, she's here, hold on a second." And then just putting the phone down on my desk. Maybe let him know she's on her way every minute or so. Are there any other good/fun ways to deal with this company? Leave a comment and let me know...

Spiderwebs and persistence

No, this isn't a review of the new Spiderman movie.

I was walking to the park for my daily b-ball slammy-jam session. You know, to work on my reverse, no-look, one-handed dunks (OK, I may be exaggerating a little... "daily" may not be completely accurate) . Anyway, it's that time of year around here when the little spiders are out in full force, spinning webs like wild. Basically, wherever there are two connection points within five feet of each other, these spiders try and build some webby apparatus. Most of them fail, of course. I know this because I walk through 5-10 of these starter webs every time I go outside. Normally I am just mildly annoyed and hoping there isn't a spider on my head, but today I thought more specifically about those little guys (and gals!) spinning their webs. I mean, how many webs do they have to begin before they finally find that sweet spot. That spot where no deluded basketballers will walk through it. Where one of their key anchor points doesn't drive off to buy a burrito (my truck gets lots of webs and I get lots of burritos). The single-minded tenacity of these spiders is inspirational. I think it speaks to the need to continue on one's task until it gets done. It could be small tasks like cleaning the bathtub or some larger job, like cleaning a really big tub (or what have you). Persistence actually does pay off, in the arachnid world and in the people world.

I didn't expect to get any inspiration on my 20 minute excursion this afternoon, but there it was in the form of those annoying webs that I've snarled at for a few Springtimes. Noticing things is good. Seeing the positive in the clues nature gives us is even better. Now to get to that tub....