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- December 29, 2004
Random Video Catchup
December 29, 2004Read moreOn day 2 of my wisdom tooth extraction recovery period, I got caught up with hours and hours of movies and anime. So far, I’ve experienced very little pain and soreness, and I’ve just been taking ibuprofen.
Finally watched Amelie, after having it in the shrinkwrap for two years. Just about everyone I know seems to have recommended it to me, and grudgingly I have to admit I liked it a lot. Very charming and cute.
Rewatched the pilot of Firefly with commentory by Joss Whedon and Nathan Fillion. Whedon puts a lot of work into his shots…more so than I realized. It was inspiring…I kind of want to swing a camera around also to play with framing and lighting now.
Watched 16 episodes of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, which is the television series version of Masamune Shirow’s Ghost in the Shell manga. It’s an alternative timeline version of the movies, and much more faithful to the manga in tone. I love it. I have yet to see Ghost in the Shell: Innocence, the sequel to the first movie directed by Oshii. I wasn’t a huge fan of the original GITS movie because it lacked the run-and-gun action and ensemble dialog of the manga…everyone seemed to be part of one giant group mind, muttering philosophically to itself. The television series is dramatic and still has a sense of humor. As an added bonus, I hooked my computer to the TV so I can watch torrented anime files on it. Whee!
Watched 12 episodes of Gilmore Girls, until my eyes bled. Nevertheless, I remain charmed by the inspired blathering and ranting of the central characters.
Grabbing Samurai Champloo now… the next series from Cowboy Bebop director Shinichiro Watanabe. I have high hopes.
- December 29, 2004
Graphical Patterns
December 29, 2004Read moreI was browsing through secretrobot and came across a lot of interesting entries. In particular, the one on GUI Design Patterns caught my eye.
Patterns have been something of a buzzword for programmers. Programmers often have to deal with the same kinds of situations in their programming tasks. While the code itself may be novel and unique, the general pattern of use is often the same. You might think of patterns as “formalized tactics”; there are known ways of dealing with certain situations. As applied to programming, the original concept of “programming patterns” was taken from architecture.
- December 29, 2004
SharpFlash
December 29, 2004Read moreThis looks neat, an open source project to extend Flash to the desktop using C#. There are other commercial tools that do the same thing, but it would be interesting to see how one goes about doing something like this. I’ll have to check it out later…blogging it so I don’t lose it. Via FLOG.
- December 28, 2004
Can’t Take the Sky From Me
December 28, 2004Read more
I finally got around to watching Firefly, Joss “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” Whedon’s short-lived Science Fiction Space Western series. I picked it up on a whim several months ago after hearing some buzz about it being cancelled before its time…a mere 9 episodes aired on Fox, at random times and in random order, before it disappeared. The complete series on DVD includes those 9 episodes plus several ones that have never been seen. With over a thousand reviews on Amazon and a solid 5-star ranking, I was hopeful that Firefly would offer a fix for my post-Farscape depression.
- December 28, 2004
Pulling Teeth
December 28, 2004Read moreToday was a long day…first, I got two wisdom teeth extracted, then I replaced my main hard drive on the production PC. Guess which one took longer.
I was pretty nervous about getting the teeth yanked, but so far it hasn’t been a terrible experience. I had it done under local anesthetic at Modern Dental, which seems to be a good enough operation. It’s the first time I’ve had my teeth looked at here in the States; prior to this, my dentist uncle in Taiwan had done all the work. Apparently my extractions were more difficult than anticipated, because I have a mutant upper wisdom tooth that has three roots instead of one. It didn’t want to come out. The bottom tooth wasn’t much more cooperative, but it eventually came. The entire procedure took a little over an hour.
Replacing my hard drive, on the other hand, took the better part of a day. Two of my hard drives were on the very brink of failure, which made it difficult to get the machine to boot up so I could transfer the boot files to the new drive. I eventually got it to work, but the data drive was hosed and I had to toss it. Fortunately I have everything backed up to a central server, so I haven’t lost anything. While I had the computer open, I also cleaned up the video card’s cooling fan, which was gummed up and making horrible noises.
All in all, a productive if slightly annoying day. The next two days should be quite painful in the jaw and I’m on a no-alcohol, no chewing diet. So much for holiday drinking and eating!
