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Moving In To New Digs

2008-12-01T11:45:00.000-08:00

Things have been pretty quiet around here lately. Not that I haven't had anything to say - its just that I got tired of running too many blogs, and I got in to some major re-design projects for some websites I run. Most of those re-design projects are winding down. But I was still wondering what to do with my personal blogs and the two people that read them :) So, I decided to condense about 4-5 personal blogs or half-started and abandoned blogs into one blog over at WordPress.com:

Matt's Musings and Meanderings

WP has a few less features, but cooler looking skins and constant updates. I have placed all of the posts from this blog in to one category, and you can see new posts that fits with this blogs theme by clicking here:

Your Official Portal to Geekdom category listing

Someday soon I may also see if I can get the postings from that category fed in to this blog, just to keep the design up. Until then, enjoy the new digs....

Summer Movies So Far

2008-06-09T19:11:00.000-07:00

I have seen a few - but not all that I want to. Got to keep the budget under control, so several will have to wait until the dollar theater. My thoughts so far:

Iron Man just... rocks. It better win a bunch of awards. It's just that good. And I never was a huge Iron Man fan growing up.

Speed Racer was way under rated. This was a great film. It was the only film I have ever seen that got a standing ovation from the audience when it was over. Seriously.

Indiana Jones and the Title I Can Never Remember was a good flick If it had come out two years after Last Crusade, everyone would have loved it. People just have to remember what they liked about the first one to connect with what is great about this one.

Lost is not a movie - but that season finale was intense. I really liked it, and I was glad they stretched it to three hours. I think the only weakness was that they tried to do too much and probably needed that extra hour that got cut due to the writer's strike.

Still need to see Prince Caspian, Expelled, Kung Fu Panda, and Sex and the City. Didn't know I was a SatC fan? Well, I' not at all. Just seeing if you are paying attention. Also waiting for The Dark Knight, Wall-E, Hellboy 2 (I really liked the first one) and some other ones that I can't remember now.

The Return of the Geek

2008-04-30T09:47:00.000-07:00

Been out of the loop for a while. I guess I could just say that I am resting for this summer and all the geeky movies coming out. But that's not really the case. Truth is, I have been contemplating condensing several of my blogs in to one personal blog. Mainly out of pure laziness. We'll see.

There are some interesting movies out or coming out this summer season. Iron Man, Speed Racer, Indiana Jones, Dark Knight, Expelled, Prince Caspian, etc, etc. None of them will be perfect, but I will probably end up watching all of them and enjoying every geeky moment of it.

Of course, I have to mention that the new season of Lost has been incredible. Flash forwards? Brilliant. Simply brilliant.

I've also been digging in to some more books recently. Just finished the first book in Stephen King's The Dark Tower series. Really strange. To the point where I'm not sure if I want to read on. But I probably will.

Also intriguing is "The Man in White" by Johnny Cash. Johnny is an incredible story teller in music, and equally good in print. The Man in White is Mr. Cash's take on the life of Paul. Yep - THE Paul. Biblical dude. And it is really interesting.

U2 3D: The Movie

2008-02-12T09:30:00.001-08:00

My wife and I saw this a while back, but I forgot to post on it. The U2 3D movie is awesome. Even if you don't really like U2, the 3D technology is so realistic. I'm not talking the red and blues glasses of a few decades back, or even the funky plastic cheap-o Disney ride glasses of the last decade. you still have to wear funky glasses, but the advances in 3D film are really noticeable. The shots that look over the massive crowd in the soccer stadium make you feel like you are really there looking out over the crowd. The drum set also looks incredibly real in 3d. On top of all of this, they also added some graphics to a few scenes - basically, they took what was showing on the screen behind the band and made it float transparently in front of the band. Neat effect.

We saw it an I-MAX, which really added to the realism. I recommend taking this route if you can.

LOST: The Island is Hell

2008-02-08T09:03:00.000-08:00

Yep.... been watching Lost. And formulating some theories. So, here goes....

There is this new character named Matthew Abaddon. We first saw him last week in a flash forward, posing as a lawyer that asked Hurley some weird questions about the other survivors. The Lost Easter Eggs Blog posted a creepy slow motion clip of Abaddon leaving the mental hospital. It doesn't look like a human is leaving. Maybe the smoke monster?

http://losteastereggs.blogspot.com/2008/02/matthew-abaddon-slow-motion-leaving.html

If you look closely, you can see the door handle shining through where his waist should be. Weird.

I also remembered hearing the word Abaddon in the Bible somewhere. I looked it up on Wikipedia quickly, and thought the entry there had some interesting points:

Abaddon (Hebrew Avaddon, meaning "destruction"). In Biblical poetry (Job 26:6; Proverbs 15:11), it comes to mean "place of destruction", or the realm of the dead, and is associated with Sheol. Abaddon is also one of the compartments of Gehenna.[1] By extension, it can mean an underworld abode of lost souls, or hell.

In Revelation 9:11, it is personified as Abaddon, "Angel of the Abyss",[1] rendered in Greek as Apollyon; and he is described as king of the locusts which rose at the sounding of the fifth trumpet. In like manner, in Rev. vi. 8, Hades is personified following after death to conquer the fourth part of the earth.

Locke's Dad told Sawyer last season that the island is hell. Maybe so? Or maybe some weird place for lost souls to find peace? But not purgatory, because they have already said that it is not purgatory.

The Best Spaceships in the Galaxy

2008-01-29T11:44:00.000-08:00

IGN.com created a list of the top 10 space ships, based on "pop-culture impact and all around cool means of transpo." It's a pretty good list, although I have one gripe: no X-Wing? Come on. That is the top fighter craft in SciFi ever. I would kick that video game space ship out of number 7 and put the X-Wing in there. Why would a video game space ship be in here anyway? Give them their own list. Also, if I really thought about it, I would probably find something to replace number 10, even though that is a cool space ship.

Another thing I have to disagree with: "can't explain what people were thinking when they came up with TNG's D" (in reference to the Enterprise-D of Start Trek: The Next Generation). Whatever! That was the coolest Enterprise ever, even though it is a little dated now.

The coolest thing: Serenity makes the list....

More on the Digital Piracy Controversy

2008-01-17T08:20:00.000-08:00

I've been writing other places about all of the controversy surrounding digital file sharing.
For the record, I don't think that it is right to steal music or movies or anything else in the long run online. I do think that it should be legal to be able to sample or preview something before you buy it, even though in most cases this is lumped in with piracy, so it still has to be avoided. I also think we need to deal with things like out of print titles in the debate. Like, re-issue them or release them for free online and stop complaining about it. But, I'll just link to my other posts on these issues.:

EduGeek Journal post on "The Great Copy Protection Debate"

This post comments on an ongoing debate on the New York Times website about copy protection. It's an interesting read on two sides of the issue. I became really fed up with the way on side was presenting their take, so I commented on the issue with some more thoughts. My comment is number 3 (posted at 2:27 pm on January 16, 2008) at the bottom of this page:

Bits Debate: Mixing It Up Over Remixes and Fair Use

Speed Racer is a Trip!

2007-12-07T07:39:00.000-08:00

I have to admit - I never really got into Speed Racer as a kid. I think it only came on some PBS channel that only came in vaguely once a week at 3:00am on Monday morning. So I really didn't care much about the movie, until I read all of the buzz on the trailer. It's totally different than anything else I have ever seen. If the buzz for this movie keeps on being good, I may still go see it. Check out the trip here:

http://movies.aol.com/movie/speed-racer-2008/28066/main

Don't Give Up On Vista

2007-11-26T12:09:00.001-08:00

The Showdown Rocks Your Face Off!

2007-11-13T14:44:00.000-08:00

Most of you know I am a metal head. So, if you aren't... you might not care about this post. I just discovered a great metal band (new to me): The Showdown!

http://www.myspace.com/theshowdown

Their first album wasn't that great. For their second album, they changed styles a little - probably influenced by Maylene & The Sons of Disaster (another great band). They stopped screaming so much, added some southern rock influences in the mix, and BAM! Hi-Voltage Heavy Metal Advisory. And they are currently on the OzzFest tour - they are that good.

Heroes and Time Travel

2007-11-05T09:22:00.000-08:00

Yes, I still love Heroes. I still think they are doing a great job. Just like last season, they are setting some stuff up. I guess some people have forgotten that once you get into a show, you are supposed to care what happens to the characters and not all of this silly stuff about "going to the next level." Ummmm..... when you start at a high level, you don't need to go up.

Why is it that whenever a Sci-Fi show introduces Hispanic characters in a new season, people automatically hate them? Nikki and Paulo in Lost, the Wonder Twins in Heroes? (and that whole "Wonderless Twins" label is getting waaayyy, old, waaayyy fast). The only problem with the twins in Heroes is that they are way more interesting if you follow the Heroes Evolutions online stuff. I think the show producers did make a mis-step there assuming that everyone would be following that and realize that the black tears in the eye thing is part of a Mayan prophecy about the end of the world.

Anyway, I had a random thought about time travel. When Hiro stabbed Sylar at the end of season 1, he was flung away and then teleported back in time. The big explosion was stopped because Nathan decided to step in, change the future, and take the exploding Peter away. Of course, Hiro doesn't know this in the past. He will still have to come back to the future, find out that the explosion was stopped, and find out his father is dead. Good and bad for him.

But, there was that episode that was five years in the future and tells what happens if Peter does explode. there is the ultra-cool "Future Hiro" there. I was thinking that Hiro would never become this future fighter because the explosion was stopped. The trippy thing is - that "Future Hiro" had still been flung into the past and had still interacted with with his hero Kensai. Learned to fight, go through trials, etc. And then came back to find that the bomb had exploded. Weird. Future Hiro learned to fight in past Japan. So, current Hiro could still become kick-butt Future Hiro. Sweet.

Random, I know. Some day I will actually blog about something other than Heroes.

But the upcoming episodes look soooo cool:

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/34696

Record Companies are Pathetic

2007-10-05T07:53:00.000-07:00

Yep - you read that right - records companies are pathetic: sad, petty, and useless. A recent case involving a lawsuit against an online file sharer shows just how slimey they are. The jury found in favor of the company (which they should have, the person was obviously guilty) - and then called for $9,250 in damages for each of the 24 songs involved in the trial. (!)

Am I the only one in the world that finds this to be abusive? $9,000 for one song - that on average was maybe shared with possibly a 100 people, causing about A $100-200 loss to the record company (depending on how much you think individual songs are worth. If you know anything about the recording industry, you know that most big record companies only spend an average of about 25 cents per song for a moderately successful song). Charging someone that much for sharing a song online is like finding someone guilty for murder and then declaring that every person in the United States with the same last name as the killer to be executed.

Here's the kicker - the record companies never had to prove that the songs were actually downloaded by someone else. Just offering them online was enough to gain this verdict. So - they only had proof that she cost the record company maybe $30-40 - and they got $222,000 in damages!

I won't accuse anyone of wrong doing (*cough* bribery *cough* payoff *cough* *cough*), but something stinks here.

I'm not in favor of stealing music or illegally downloading songs - but if the record company accepts this obviously unfair verdict - they are nothing but scumbags. And for any artists that stand with the big record companies in this decision - I will no longer be buying your CDs. Or your junk merchandise.

Record companies - WAKE UP! YOU are the ones that have caused illegal file sharing to become such a huge problem. You've done everything you can to steal money from us and the bands you sign - eventually there had to be a backlash. Do you really think we were happy going out to buy a CD of cool song that were heard on the radio just to find out that one song was the only good song on a CD full of junk? Do you think were happy when we invested a ton of money into a record or tape collection, only to have you roll out CDs and expect us to re-buy all the music that we already owned? Did you really think we were going to fall for that again for all the new "better-than-CD" options you've tried to roll out since then? Did you really think we ignored all of those expose TV shows that showed how CDs now don't cost you any more than tapes to produce, but you still keep charging more? Did you really think we've ignored all of the artist interviews through the years about how they were ripped off by you?

Heroes: Four Months Later....

2007-09-27T09:58:00.000-07:00

So, the new Heroes season is here at last. How good is Heroes? Well, it makes some people cuss, it's so good. So far, I'm very intrigued with where they are going. I'm starting to see a trend with some of the extra online stuff that I refer to as Heroes Extended Edition. One of things I am noticing is that the Activating Evolution site mentions a lot about how species will begin displaying mutations if there is a global threat to the species - as kind of a survival instinct. On Hana's blog, there are references to a Mayan prophecy that the earth will end in December 2012. Could it be the shows theory that there is an impending doomsday in the works, and that nature is causing humans to develop super powers in a type of survival instinct? We're starting to see that some super heroes can have the same power. Could it be that nature will keep bringing up these mutations until it stumbles up the one trait that we all need to survive?

I am guessing that at some point, someone else in the older generation of Heroes also had the ability to see the future. Maybe they saw the impending apocalypse, and have a plan to do something about it? I wonder if they are going to send Hiro to the ancient Mayan culture next, and he will see another hero there that can also paint the future - and that's where the Mayan prophecy came from :) Probably not, but that would be cool.

Personally, I can't wait for the 8th episode "Eight Months Ago..." which will go back and answer some of the unanswered questions about the past four months. How did Peter and Nathan survive the explosion? But why do they all think Peter is dead? What happened to Peter the last four months? What does that helix looking symbol mean, anyway? People are making necklaces out of it, so it obviously means something to someone in the show.

Seven Wonders of the IT World

2007-09-24T08:11:00.000-07:00

CIO magazine had this list of the Seven Wonders of the IT World (or, more accurately, the computer world). Some interesting computers on that list. The fastest super computer out there is purely amazing.

http://cio.com/article/135700

What New Shows Am I Interested In This Season?

2007-09-24T08:10:00.000-07:00

To be honest - none. Sure, there are some interesting ones out there. But I probably won't watch any of them. Why? Because they will probably get canceled.

I'm wondering how long it will be before the TV watching public begins to just stop investing in any new shows with me. Think of the shows that showed promise, or drew a fan base, such as Firefly, that were given bad promotion, and then canceled before given a chance to gain viewers. Sure, you have shows like Jericho that can come back from the dead - but that's only one so far. So many shows are now trying to latch on to the Lost or Heroes formula: long, complicated plots that span entire series (or at least entire seasons) with intrigue and mystery. The problem is: you dig in, invest in the show, and then it bites the dust. I'm just going to sit back and wait to see if anything makes it to season 2. Then rent the DVDs for season 1.

This is really just the problem with the entertainment industry in general. No investment in anything if it's not a hit right off the bat. And not to mention over-saturation. there are just too many movies, TV shows, CDs, games, etc pushed out every week. I remember recently that Bono said there may never again be another U2. Not because no one can ever be as good as them - it's just that the record companies are not supporting and developing bands enough to allow for them to grow into another U2. I think that can be said in all sectors of the entertainment industry: companies are too caught up with getting the next biggest thing out there yesterday.

Less Than a Month till Heroes

2007-08-28T07:57:00.000-07:00

Get this widget!

There has been a ton of interesting buzz about Heroes recently. Heroes has been one of my favorite television shows. I've been keeping up with the (very interesting) online comic this summer. The one released today has me thinking - what is the deal with Hiro's Dad (Kaito Nakamura)? He is know by street thugs - and scares them away? Sweet! I hope they develop his story more next year. I found the Season 2 preview from ComicCon on YouTube:

Some things I noticed in the trailer:

Hiro's father is in there - so maybe my wish about him will come true.
Matt Parkman lives
Nathan Petrelli lives!
Sylar is for sure alive - but we kind of already knew that
Peter Petrelli lives!

Peter and Sylar living was pretty much already a given, from what happened last season. But how did both Nathan and Peter both survive? Here's my theory:

We already know that Peter survived the original version of the explosion. In the new version, the question would be - could he explode, and then fall from miles up, and survive the fall from that high up? If Nathan was still alive - sure. Here is what I would have done (if I was Nathan): fly as high as I could. Tell Peter to give me a few seconds. Release him, and fly as far away as I could. Remember - Nathan can break the sound barrier. Then, fly back underneath the explosion - to stay away from radiation. Give Peter enough time to heal as he fell, while following him as he fell. When he is fully healed, catch him, and land. Then go cut Sylar's head off. I mean - seriously - is anyone ever going to get that this dude won't die unless you cut him into tiny pieces? That may not even work....

The Yamagato Fellowship website (a mock site for Heroes) has an interesting "documentary" on Takezo Kensai, the famous historical Hero that Hiro idolized:

http://www.yamagatofellowship.org/videoPlayer.shtml

Hana Gitelman's website has also been active recently, suggesting that she somehow survives electronically - maybe on the Internet? They already did that in the X-Files, but it is still a cool concept to explore. Maybe this massacre described in the story has something to do with that new super-villain that Molly was scared of? We'll see.

The Primatech Paper, Corinthian Casino, Activating Evolution, Nathan Petrelli for Congress, and Hiro's blog websites have all be quiet recently. The MySpace accounts for Claire, Nikki/Jessica, and Zach are all inactive (page can't be found). We'll see what new stuff pops up over the next few weeks.

Interesting Lost Teaser Online

2007-08-09T13:28:00.000-07:00

The Lost official website has a clip of another station orientation film. It's for a station called "The Orchid." The dude giving the orientation is going by yet another name. But in the film, he does acknowledge that the work on the island is dangerous, and that the Dharma Initiative is being deceptive from time to time. My theories from the clip:

The whispering people noises are happening in the film, while the Dharma workers are working. They don't seem to care. It must be a regular or expected phenomena to them.
The 15 rabbit is held by the talking guy, and then another 15 rabbit shows up in the background. They talk about shifting the rabbit, so I am thinking that there has something to do with time travel.
They want to keep the rabbits away from each other, which reminds me of Back to the Future II (and how Marty McFly was always told to avoid running in to himself).
The dude that talks on the orientation video is kind of a jerk "behind the scenes" :)
The Casimir effect he mentions apparently has something to do with levitation and nanotechnology. So, now we have levitation, nanotechnology, smoke monsters, multiplying bunnies, this Jacob person/thing, and purple skies all on Lost island. Maybe they are all on some huge drug trip in reality?

So, I am guessing that the whispering noise is something that happens when something is sent through time.

----------------
Now playing: Paradox - Give A Listen
via FoxyTunes

My History With Computers, Part 2

2007-07-31T08:01:00.000-07:00

So, like I said last time, going to college changed the computer landscape for me. It was 1991, and home computers were becoming popular. I was thinking that I really needed one to get through college. But my parents were convinced that all we needed was a typewriter. So, I got a job at the Po Folks restaurant in Waco, and bought the two things I really needed to get through college: a truck (1991 Izusu pickup) and a computer. I took out a loan for $2000 and bought an IBM PS/1. The truck lasted until it blew a rod last year, but the PS/1 has been gone since 95 or so - so I guess you can see which one was a better buy :)

Anyway - the PS/1 was incredible. First of all, it came with Prodigy - an early Internet-like service that I loved. My parents got a little mad that the phone was always tied up, but it's not like we got that many calls. So, yep - I've been on the Internet for a long time. The funny thing is, I saw the PS/1 on some list of the 10 worst home computers of all time. Most of the problems they listed didn't affect me, though. The PS/1 had 30mb hard drive (NOT gb - mb), IBM-DOS (this was before Windoze came on the scene), and a monster mouse that didn't always click when you hit the buttons. But it had Microsoft Works - that saved my rear in college many times.

My parents caught on to the need for computers, and now my Mom currently has a super monster computer to transfer VHS to DVD and make home DVDs.

So, the next decade of my life was spent with a variety of computer upgrades and new services. I went from IBM-DOS to Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 to Win 98 to XP. Haven't even touched Vista yet. Don't know if I will ever be brave enough for that.

Anyway, in college I also got my first experience with Macs. Baylor had all Mac labs, so around 1994-97, I spent a lot of time on the early WWW and the Mac version of what ever. Archive.org has a great service called the Way Back Machine, and it's pretty interesting to look back at the old versions of websites archived there. I remember many of them. Man, has the Internet come a long way.

I tended to shy away from programming computers in college, but I quickly got back in to it after getting in to the work world. I had no aversions to programming in college - I just got too busy. Anyway, I went to a computer training when I was a Junior High teacher called "Intel Teach to the Future Training." We all had to take tests online to see if we had the necessary skills to just jump right in the class and start. Or so we thought. The first day of the class, someone raised their hand and said "now, are you sure I won't break this thing by pressing the 'on' button?" The teacher of the class (who was also another Science teacher), looked at my wife and I (we were both Science teachers and in this class), rolled his eyes, gave us the "might want to entertain yourself for a while" look, and proceeded to baby sit this teacher for an hour's worth of basic computer training. Like, really basic.

So, I got on the Internet and learned html. Since then I have gotten into CSS, XML, PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, Flash, and ActionScript. All of which I learned because they were needed for my job at the time (whatever it was), but no one else knew how to do it.

Also, around 2003, I started my first blog. Been addicted ever since.

In 2004, I worked at a company that was (for the most part) all Mac based. So, I used my first iMac (the G4) in a work environment. I was pretty impressed. When Apple decided to come out with Intel-based Macs, I was almost convinced that it was time to switch. Our Mac-fanatic friend Chris was the final push that convinced Katie and I to go Mac. A few months ago, our new iMac Core Due arrived, and I've been loving it ever since. Now, if only the price of iPhone would come down, I could get one of those, and start a whole new chapter in my history with computers....

(by the way, the links I am putting in these articles are to pictures of the computers or programs in question).

My History With Computers, Part 1

2007-07-25T07:15:00.001-07:00

For some reason, I have been on a nostalgia trip recently. I was looking at PC World's Top 10 worst computers of all time, and the first computer I ever bought was up there! It was a great computer! Anyway, I started to reminisce, and I was surprised to find out how many screen shots, articles, and emulators there are out there for these old systems I used to own or use. Here is my brief history with computers.

My first time to use a computer was in 4th grade, around 1983-1984. Our school had a Commodore 64. They would send all of the artsy/nerdy students to what they called "Gifted & Talented" class once a week - and the C64 was one of the activities they kept us busy with. Interesting how GT started out as a way to describe the "weird" kids. Anyway, I basically learned how to use |/\{} etc draw a rocket ship that would scroll up the screen. And to play a game or two.

I also remember back in the day when Target had a C64 on display. My brother and I would always jump at a chance to go shopping with our Mom, and then get to Target only to dash off to the electronics row. The game that they always had, that we always played, was G.I.Joe. Mom would have to drag us kicking and screaming out of that store every time.

I also remember visiting Sears a lot and playing their ColecoVision every chance we got. We loved to play the Smurf game. Yep - it was labeled the "Easiest Video Game Ever." But we never won it. Sad.

Somewhere in mid-80s, my parents broke down and bought us an Atari 2600. We actually owned something before that to play Pong on, but I can't remember what it was. Anyway, we used to spend hours playing Atari games at friends and relatives houses, so we eventually ended up with one of our own. The games were simple, but we loved to play. For days on end. I think school happened in there somehow.

Also, along the way, we talked our parents in to our first home computer as a family - the TI-99 4/A. We also spent hours playing Parsec and Tunnels of Doom on this thing. Tunnels was great because we could get the whole family together and explore the dungeons looking for the King's treasure. We even has a tape player to store stuff on - that was what the po' folks did back in the day when floppy disk drives were too expensive. Um... a floppy disk is... well, if you don't know - go look it up. Anyway - cassette tapes are very finicky, so every other time you stored stuff on them, you usually lost it. But it was soooo cool to be able to turn off the computer and have it remember where you were in the game.

I even learned how to do graphics and some video game programing on the TI. Now, granted, the pixels on the graphics were a good 1/4" square. And the action was pretty slow in Basic programming language. But I still fondly remember my first program - Stormtrooper Battle 357. You had to go up 10 levels of the DeathStar, each level with a Stormtrooper to shoot. Of course, the trooper just stood there until you hit the 'F' key - because I didn't know how to do it differently. Then, when you got to the top hatch of the DeathStar, you had to enter the "secret code" to get out. What was the secret code? Take a wild guess....

Any way, I also remember in High School how the Nintendo Entertainment System became huge. We spent hours at friends houses playing Super Mario Brothers, Castevania, Duck Hunt, etc, etc. Until my brother got one for Christmas, and then we spent hours in his room playing those games. Yeah, and we did manage to make it to school most of the time. Somehow.

About the 10th grade (1989), my school started offering a computer course. So, I jumped at that. Don't even remember what computer was used, but it was IBM, and it had the old monochrome screen. I Spent hours programming BASIC (that's one of those old computer programming language, for those that don't remember) and designing goofy banners to print out. I was the envy of my class when I learned how to change the color of the text on my screen from green to any one of 16 basic colors.

Of course, I was also around when the arcade video game scene took off (late 70s - early 80s). Wasted many quarters on anything from Donkey Kong to M.A.C.H. III to Karate Champ to Dragons' Lair. Also, I remember playing on several Apple IIE's back in the day.

Well, that pretty much takes me up to college, and the fact that I got a job the last month of high school and worked through my entire 6 year stint at college (yep - 6 years, not 4) pretty much changed the computer landscape for me. I'll hit that in part two.

Brief Summer Movie Reviews

2007-07-17T07:48:00.000-07:00

My wife and I are actually not that huge into movies. We tend to miss most of them. However, we seem to have gotten a chance to see many of the big releases so far this year. Here are my brief thoughts on them:

Spiderman 3: Lots of good ideas - but too many for one movie. Many scenes, and some characters could have been cut. Not better than part 2, but still a fun movie.

Shrek 3: Really funny. I like Shrek movies. Just as good as the first 2, if you ask me.

Pirates of the Caribbean 3: Great action sequences, great special effects. Hated the ending, but I still enjoyed the overall experience. Keith Richards as Captain Jack Sparrow's Dad is classic.

Transformers: Awesome movie. Plot? Who cares! I love giant, fighting robots. The biggest problem with this movie (as any other Michael Bay movies) is that a ton of innocent bystanders die, without any emotional weight. Mass deaths like that are devastating, and I think the movie would have been better without them. I already know what Creecy is going to say about it, though: "it's a racist movie. The only good guy robot to die was black." Well, Creecy, it's a Michael Bay film - we all knew Jazz was toast from the beginning. His most cliche characters always bite it.

Live Free or Die Hard: I would have never seen this one, if I hadn't have been with a group that wanted to see it. Not a big fan of the Die Hard series. Still, entertaining - even if 90% of the action is even more unbelievable than in the first three. I was waiting for Bruce Willis' sidekick to bust out and say "Hi, I'm a Mac..." at any time - but it never happened.

Coming soon, and looking forward to:

Bourne Ultimatum: Katie and I love the Bourne series. The trailers look awesome - so we'll be there. "I doubt you are sitting in your office." "Why is that?" "Because - if you were, we would be having this conversation face to face."

The Kingdom: Looks like a gritty take at culture clash gone wrong. Set in Saudi Arabia, staring Jamie Foxx and Jennifer Garder (and many other quality actors that I can't pull out of my head right now).

Underdog: The trailer looks hilarious. I'll want to see if the movie lives up to the hype. "Y'know, you never see dogs hurting each other for money." "You never see people sniffing each other's butts." "Touché."

We'll probably also get around to seeing Fantastic Four 2 (yes, I liked part 1), Harry Potter 50 or whatever number it is (never read the books, but they make entertaining movies), Evan Almighty, and Ratatouille before all is said and done.

Return of Pink Five, Volume 2

2007-06-29T13:26:00.000-07:00

"I'm a freakin' Jedi!"

"To the hand you must talk"

I've always loved Star Wars fan films. I remember watching Hardware Wars back in the 70s. Then, there was the classic T.R.O.O.P.S., a spoof on C.O.P.S. that followed Imperial Sand Troopers as they patrolled Tatooine. Recently, one of the more popular videos on YouTube has been a series of Spoofs that follows Darth Vader's less successful younger brother, Chad, in the series "Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager."

One of my favorite fan films is Pink Five. Pink Five follows the adventures of Stacy, a "a fast-talking Valley Girl-type dropped into an X-Wing cockpit during the Battle of Yavin, and presents familiar events and story points from Episode IV from a very different point-of-view." This was followed with "Pink Five Strikes Back" and the three part "Return of Pink Five." Finally, I noticed today that part 2 of Return has been released:

To see all of the Pink Five series, go here: http://www.trudang.com/pinkfive/

To see a list of Star Wars fan films, see this list on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Star_Wars_fan_films. Some are serious, some are funny, some are down right bad, but there is plenty of home-made entertainment to be had.

Sanctuary For All

2007-05-31T08:33:00.000-07:00

This just caught my eye recently: a web-based SciFi show starring know actors, shooting for "broadcast quality" episodes, called Sanctuary. The first few webisodes are free, but they want you to pay $1.99 for each 15 minute segment. You personally might not like the subject matter (deals with some scary creatures), but you have to at least admit that the concept of releasing broadcast quality material online is a good idea. The Star Wars TV show, which is being produced independently of any TV network, may follow suit.

So far, I like the first two episodes. Every once and a while, I catch a stylistic choice with the CG that I personally wouldn't have chosen, but that's really just me. Even with it's imperfections, I am still more excited about this now than I am about the new Star Wars shows that are being worked on. I know - that's SciFi blasphemy. But the recent preview of the new Clone Wars CG series was just, well... flat. Could be good - but why do all the characters walk like they are constipated?

I've heard some complaints about the price for Sanctuary. The argument being that real TV is free. I guess if you don't have something called cable that might be a good argument - but not really. No TV is free. Commercials pay for our "free" TV. Those commercials cause the companies to jack up prices to pay for their advertising budget. So, you see, no television is free.

You can view the first four episodes online for free, as they are released, here. Here is the first episode (two are out so far):

iPhone is Just Around the Corner

2007-05-18T08:20:00.001-07:00

And I am pretty excited. I can't afford one, but it is still awesome.

But - I can't really gripe about the price. $500 seems a lot for a Smart Phone, but I don't think most people should see the iPhone as a Smart Phone. Smart Phones tend to have some lite version of an OS installed - Palm OS, or Windows for Mobiles, or whatever. This severally limits their functionality.

The iPhone will have a full version of OS X installed on it - the same version that is on the iMac and the Powerbook. So, the iPhone is not really Apple's version of the Smart phone. It is a PowerBook, an iPod, and a cellphone all wrapped in to one. All for $500. Actually - a pretty good deal.

Not to mention the fact that all of the other smart phones out there usually either sacrifice the mp3 player or the OS. They usually don't do both well.

Lost Theory: The Others are Immortals

2007-05-15T20:02:00.000-07:00

How did Richard Alpert not age at all over the course of several decades? Think Highlander:


Richard Alpert LOST	Duncan McLeod Highlander

"Here we are, born to be kings..."

Lost Theory: Jacob Uses People For Entertainment

2007-05-10T08:15:00.000-07:00

Coming up with theories about Lost is much more difficult than coming up with theories about Heroes. With Heroes - you basically know who everyone is and what they are capable of. You know where the current season is going. You just want to know if they are going to succeed or fail. With Lost - you don't really know any of this. You really don't even know where they are. Or if they are even alive. I love both shows, and the direction they are both going. It just makes it harder to predict stuff. I already have three more Heroes theories to post, if I ever get the time.

Here is what I think (on Lost): Jacob is some type of supernatural being that is in control of the island. He could do what he wanted on the island because most people could not see him. He brought people to the island to live out some type of vicarious life through them. There have been plenty of other SciFi series that explore this. Usually, it's an alien species that brings people into some type of virtual reality deal, and then uses their memories as entertainment. Jacob brings people to the island, and then his metaphorical "box" brings in people from their past to see how they react.

Somewhere, somehow the Dharma Initiative found this island and set up their stations to observe the unusual stuff going on. They were able to set up the barriers and the sealed stations to keep Jacob from using them. This started the war between the hostiles and the Dharma. When the hostiles won, the found that Ben was the only one that could "see" Jacob. So Ben became their leader, and Jacob started using the left over Dharma stuff to bring in people. Dharma had been using the sub to bring in people because water acts as a barrier to the effects of the island that causes planes and helicopters to crash.

But, now that the homing beacon is gone and no one can leave the island - no new people are coming. And this is hurting Jacob some how. Or, because Ben can see Jacob, he is able to exert some control over Jacob. You kind of saw this is the current episode. This is also hurting Jacob - so he needs Locke's help.

Heroes Theory: Death of DL, Ando, & Sylar

2007-05-09T08:17:00.000-07:00

Here is my big prediction for next week on Heroes: DL will be killed by Sylar. Here is my reasoning:

NBC and Wikipedia have already stated that a hero will die next week.
We saw last week (set 5 years in the future) that Nikki said DL and Micah die in the explosion. The online graphic novel also reveals that she didn't know Peter or Hiro, so she obviously gets separated from her family in the next episode. Especially since she doesn't die in the explosion.
We see this week that DL can pull other people through walls with his powers.
We saw last week that Sylar has this same power in the future. So far, the writers of Heroes seem to be showing that no two heroes have the exact same powers. So, Sylar probably killed DL sometime around the bomb exploding.
This is probably why FutureHiro thought Sylar could heal himself. When he stabbed Sylar, Sylar got all sinister on FutureHiro and acted like he was hurt, when in reality the blade was just passing through him. He then knocks Hiro back and Hiro teleports out of there.

Because of this, here is what I would like to see:

Hiro goes to attack Sylar, and 20 Hiros appear around him. Each time Hiro tries to kill Sylar, he fails, and then thinks of something new to try, and teleports back a few minutes in time to try his new idea. Each time he appears to the existing Hiro(s) and says "stop! that won't work. Try this ____" They then try the new idea. Finally, at the 20th time, we see the idea work and they stop Sylar. As the viewers, we only get to see the 20th time, and it works.
During the season break, the online graphic novels explores everything that could have happened in the next five years if the bomb doesn't stop.

But, knowing how TV writers work, here is the lame thing that actually happens:

Hiro figures out that Ando dying is what set the bomb events in motion. He sacrifices himself to save Ando, and that changes the future, and somehow stops the bomb.

I want Hiro AND Ando to live. Actually, I want all of the heroes to live. Killing characters on TV shows is so cliche now....

The Launch of EduGeek Journal

2007-03-13T07:53:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts around here. I know there has been some great Sci-Fi news and television stuff happening. Heroes has been incredible recently. But more on that later. The big reason why this blog has been neglected recently is that I have been getting another blog going.

I guess I really like this blog thing. Anyway, some I have gotten together with some colleagues of mine to create a blog specifically for Educational Technology. This blog will begin to focus mainly on music and movies. The new blog, EduGeek Journal, will focus on EdTech. So, now, I have divided my massive audience of five in half. Well, kind of. I know one my readers will stick with both, because she's in to both :)

Blog From Inside of Second Life

2007-02-28T15:01:00.000-08:00

For a while now, I have wanted to blog about Sloodle, but I haven't had the foggiest idea where to start. It's a great tool for use in the educational world. But I think I have been waiting until the launch of my EdTech blog before I post too much on it.

But this one thing I found was pretty cool. You can blog to a Moodle account from inside of the Second Life virtual world. Just sounds cool. Here is a video that shows how to do it:

Ninja Wizards Would Be Cool

2007-02-26T12:23:00.000-08:00

This has been around a while, but seems to fit in great with this blog (you have to click on the image to see the animation):

Technically, that would be awesome....

You might be noticing some changes to this blog. I'm never one to be satisfied with generic templates, for one. Unless they are really cool. Also, I'm transitioning this blog into more of Sci-fi, music, geek blog - in anticipation of a separate Ed Tech blog beginning soon. Or at least, I hope soon.

Amazing Race All Stars

2007-02-19T12:35:00.000-08:00

The Amazing Race seems to have just appeared on CBS, with little or no advertising. Well, I guess there could have been some advertising, as the shows that I watch aren't on CBS (Heroes, Lost, and Stargate). Yes, Stargate. SG-1 and Atlantis. Stop making fun of me. What is the name of this blog again? I make no apologies for being a geek...

This is really only an "All-Stars" edition for those that watched every season (except for season 4). So, some of the teams I have no idea who they are. And some (Romber) I wish were not there. No Chip and Kim? No Hippies? Come on....

Anyway, I found out that the racers are filmed after they are eliminated. Apparently, they are sent off to some tropical location to be sequestered from the world until the end of the race. And then complain about how they wish they were back on the race - cold, sweaty, dirty, and smelly. You can watch the videos here, as they are posted:

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/amazing_race11/elimination.php

My early predications: Rob and Amber will stick around for a while, but then finally get pushed off when the other teams get sick of their tired, old tricks and gang up against them. Yes, I know they claimed they had all new tricks. But then they proceeded to pull out the same old ones. "Mark my words...."

I think Uchenna and Joyce will also suffer the same fate, even though I like them. People will see them as a threat due to the fact that they already won. I'm also pulling for the two all-women teams, because I think they are not as "bad" as some people claim they are. They are just competitive, and the world we live in today treats competitive women differently than they do competitive men. If they were all male teams, they would be seen as "shrewd."

Video Blogs Are Just Around the Corner

2007-02-06T09:36:00.000-08:00

Video Blogs Are Just Around the Corner. Are you ready? I was searching and searching for a video version of Odeo the other week, and I just couldn't find anything. With Odeo, you just hook up a microphone, and record audio straight into the website. Then you can embed the audio in any website. But it's only audio, and the world seems to be moving to video pretty rapidly. Then, the other day, I just happened to stumble across what I was looking for: Flixn.

Flixn works a lot like Odeo. You hook up a web cam, press record, and then hit stop when you are done. Then you can get code to embed the video anywhere you want. Pretty neat. Or at least I think - I don't have a webcam to test it out.

But Flixn seems to go one step farther - you can actually embed the recorder into your site. So, if you have an online class that you want to record video for, you can keep the entire recording process in your site. Hopefully, more Web2.0 sites will move to this thinking - allowing end users to embed their functionality into a site. Then you don't have to constantly being switching back and forth between applications to get stuff done. Of course, Firefox's tabbed browsing makes that easy - but it's still nice to have it all in one place.

Screwtape Letters: The Movie?

2007-02-02T07:35:00.000-08:00

For those that know me, you know I am a big C.S. Lewis fan. In fact, I am re-reading The Space Trilogy now. Well, not now as I type this, but as in the general now. I can only hope and dream that someone wises up and turns these books into movies. But it seems that there are definite plans to make a movie based on The Screwtape Letters.

This could be good or bad. Film versions of Screwtape and The Great Divorce could benefit from the right director and special effects crew. But they are both stories that could be ruined if the spiritual message is forced too far up front, or scaled back too far. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe movie did a decent job with this, although leaning a little too much towards the "scaled back" side. And the fact that they needed James Earl Jones to do Aslan's voice. I like Liam Neeson, but after Lion King....

Anyway, if you don't know much about Screwtape, SciFi.com had a good summary:

"First published in 1942, The Screwtape Letters takes the form of a series of missives from a senior demon, Screwtape, to his wannabe diabolical nephew, Wormwood. As a mentor, Screwtape advises his protege on the finer points of undermining faith and promoting sin. His instructions are interspersed with observations on human nature and Christian doctrine."

Heroes... What Can I Say?

2007-01-31T13:34:00.000-08:00

Part 2 of season 1: what did I say about the sword being in a museum? I was half right, huh? HOWEVER, I noticed that there were differences between the painting and the scene in the museum. So, maybe it hasn't really happened yet? We'll see. The guy that plays Hiro helped program the CG dinosaurs of Jurassic Park. Hmmmm.....

I am still trying to figure out this Heroes 360 thing. Is that Primatech webpage it? Still, I hear that they will be stopping the bomb thing from happening before the end of this season, and then move on to other stories. That's a great idea, because I think Lost has proven that most viewers can't wait multiple seasons for answers or resolution. I like the way Lost is working out, but I know some don't.

Zoho Notebook: Another Great Leap For the Web2.0 World

2007-01-31T13:16:00.000-08:00

I came home from a nice break in a tropical location to get smacked in the fact by two crazy facts of life. For one, there's still some form of freezing precipitation falling in my corner of the world (but I can't quite call it snow). Ouch. The second one: Google is not coming out with as many cool things as they used to. At least when compared to companies like Zoho.

I can deal with that, as long as the G-powers that be don't pull the plug on this blog for pointing that out. The coolest new invention from the Zoho labs: Zoho Notebook. The goal of Zoho Notebook: allow the user (you) to put any content (text, audio, images, video, etc) anywhere on a page, and then share that with others anyway you want.

Don't most web pages allow you to do that? Sure - if you know the code. Zoho Notebook gives it all to you in a nice user interface. And - the best part is - you can record audio or video straight from your computer into your page. Or upload a pre-recorded file. All you need is a microphone or a video camera hooked up to your computer.

Also, they allow you import content from Zoho Writer, Sheets, and Show (think Word Doc, Excel, and PowerPoint online). All with Skype integration. Nice. Here's a quick overview video of some of the features:

I was noticing that Zoho also has online virtual office, chat, wikis, planers, etc. I am slowly wondering if I need to switch to Zoho from Google for some of this stuff. Come on Google - get on the ball and buy this stuff!

Google AJAX Search API

2007-01-18T09:33:00.000-08:00

I'm not totally sure what to make of this one, but it sounds interesting. It seems that Google has created a search function that allows you to insert a Google search area into your site in a custom way. One of the most practical seems to be that it would allow you to use Google to search your site.

One of the really intriguing ones is the blog comments search API. You can add a small Google search area next to a blog comment area, and then the results can be added to the end of the comment as "clippings." Sounds like a great idea for educational purposes. I would like to see something like that for discussion posts, too. That way, you can quickly find results to back up your posts in an academic settings.

I haven't fully dug into these ideas yet, but they sound interesting.

iPhone. Wow.

2007-01-12T09:32:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about getting a smart phone recently. mainly because I need something to make me look smart every time I open my big mouth (and insert my foot). Nothing really seemed like a perfect fit for me. Then, Apple came to the rescue with the iPhone.

All I can say is Wow. I want one. This has the possibility to revolutionize mobile computing, communications, and especially education. You may have read the articles about it, but you NEED to see Steve Jobs intro of the phone at MacWorld. It's pretty long, but will make your jaw drop a couple of times.

Here is the link to the video. Click on the second one about the iPhone intro. It won't seem like the right video at first, but it is:

http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/j47d52oo/event/

Snap Causes Hades to Freeze Over

2007-01-10T07:58:00.000-08:00

I've seen this on several blogs recently, so I thought I would give it a whirl. Snap has created a web preview feature for links in Web sites. You just hover your pointer over a link, and a small preview of that site will pop up for you. Some sites haven't been added to this service, so you may get a window that says "waiting to be added to previewed" or something like that. Still a pretty cool feature, and easy to sign up for. I added to this site, if you want to try it.

Snap is a new search site that I guess is trying to add something new to the search engine. Wait a second.... a cool web search innovation that didn't come from Google first? I know it is going to freeze in Dallas this week, but I guess I had better check the forecast for Hell....

Top Ten "Benefits" Of The New Microsoft-Ford Partnership

2007-01-08T08:40:00.000-08:00

I usually try to stay positive here at Geekdomville, but this was too good to pass up. Ford and Microsoft are planning on launching a car software system. Now, you may love Ford, but I tend to think Ford stands for "Found On Roadside Dead" or "Fix Or Repair Daily." And, while I don't personally hate Microsoft, I think they are far inferior to Mac, Linus, and, well, just about everything out there. So, I thought I would speculate on the, ummm, benefits of owning a new VistaCarPC2007:

Your engine begins to slow down after owning it for a year due to Spyware clogging it up.
Your entire car freezes up and stops running when you turn on the AC, radio, cruise control, and windshield wipers due to a command-line/ low-virtual-memory/ something-you-don't-understand conflict something or other
Your dashboard isn't compatible with that new cool cup holder you bought, unless you download the dashboard patch
You will constantly be attacked while driving down the road by roving bands of Ford hating computer hackers that have now gone mobile
Your seats have to increase their virtual memory when you have too many people seated in it just so you can drive forward.
You will also have to constantly be on the alert for viruses hidden in any attachments, including bumper stickers, Jesus-fishes, and Sonic restaurant window trays
Firewalls will stop you from turning on to main streets, while allowing you to easily drive down dangerous alleys population by prostitutes and gangsters
Constant annoying pop-up window fliers wanting you to play their in-car poker games
When your tire blow out, who knows how long it will be before they release a patch. If ever...

And the worst of all....

Those snobbish Electric Car\iMac hybrid owners that constantly remind you how superior their vehicle is in every way....

New Year, New Firefox Version

2007-01-02T10:14:00.000-08:00

So, it's a New Year. Cool. What am I looking forward to in the next year? What new Geekdom goodness am I drooling over? Lots of interesting movies, TV shows, and music to think about. Plenty of new techie things being announced that are pretty exciting. Some may happen, some sound like corporate hype (the hack-proof Vista, anyone?). The one that I think will definitely happen, and will probably live up to it's hype, is the new version of Firefox scheduled for this year.

Well, Mozilla says that Firefox won't be released officially until the end of 2007, but I am still looking forward to it. The Alpha version was released in early December. The people that are developing it "hope that it will be a major step toward making Web applications indistinguishable from programs that are installed on the desktop."

This, to me, sounds like the missing piece in Web2.0 development. Programmers that are creating applications for the web are sometimes limited by browser specifications. Now that a browser is looking to make Web2.0 a reality, I think we will see even better online applications.

I found out over the holidays that some people are afraid of Web2.0 concepts, especially the thought of storing documents or projects that they are creating online. What if you internet connection goes down? What if the website crashes? well, those are always a possibility. But creating anything comes with risks. If you create a Word document and store it on a hard drive - what happens when your drive crashes? Zip drive back-ups can get lost, CD-R backups can get drop and broken, etc. There is always a risk of loss. Even printed copies can get lost, accidentally thrown away, etc. We've just gotten over the fears in existing project creations. I think we are just going to have to wait until people get over fears of Web2.0 technology, too.

Congratulations! You Are Time's Person of the Year

2006-12-20T08:24:00.000-08:00

Just don't expect a prize :) This has been all over the Web, but I think it is still cool. And it's Christmas time, so I don't exactly expect to stay o n top of this blog while I am relaxing on vacation. Anyway, due to the growth or user input based websites like YouTube and Wikipedia, Time magazine has decided to name the entire world person of the year.

Of course, this is due to the growth of the Web2.0 revolution, which I have been heavily focusing on in this blog. This is great news for Ed Tech folks like me, because the more recognition online tools get, the more development there will be on that front. I read about a YouTube like site for artists the other day. I need to dig that one out. Stuff like this is really exciting for the future of Online Education.

Of course, I say I will be taking a break for Christmas, but who knows? So much geeky news to report. A new Transformers movie trailer to drool over, cool new websites popping up every where, and I finally got to see an episode of Battlestar Gallactica this weekend. Yes, I am the only geek in the world without cable. So I had to wait until I was out of town in a hotel to see it. But, the upside is that, while flipping through cable channels looking for something to watch, I finally found a Star Trek series that my wife actually likes (Voyager).

Putting It All Together: An Online Lesson

2006-12-11T09:25:00.000-08:00

So, I've been talking about all of these random tools for online education. But what can actually be done to teach with these tools? Here's one idea I have for a lesson. Combine an online PowerPoint presentation with an embedded audio from a podcast. Then you have a complete lesson that accommodates all three learning styles (the kinesthetic people have to click to go to the next slide).

Here's an example. This is my presentation from the 2006 IOL conference in Austin. I uploaded the PowerPoint to SlideShare, and re-recorded the audio with Odeo Studio. All online, all free, all pretty cool. The audio was pretty much a one-shot, quick re-do on my home computer this last weekend, but it is possible to use a free program like Audacity to record your speech, then edit in music and sound effects, and finally upload that back into Odeo.

Click on the play button to hear the audio. Something like this may need a good set of instructions for students to follow, but could end up being a good, low cost alternative to something like Camtasia.

YackPack: Will Voice-Based E-mail Catch On?

2006-12-07T10:01:00.000-08:00

We've all ran into the same big problem with e-mail: it's so hard to read a person's mood in the message. Are they angry, happy, bored? Many an enemy has been made in the world over the mis-typed or ill conceived response. Even a smiley really doesn't help that much - mainly because so many people misuse them. "Your such an idiot :)" - so obviously a joke... right? Phones usually always beat e-mails in the accurate communication department. So, can you combine voice with e-mail to overcome these problems?

Some companies can have made attempts at this. Google Talk introduced a Voice Message system for email that I've touched on before. YackPack is a website that seems to move the concept of email totally into the voice realm. Basically, with YackPack, you record messages to leave for people that are also on YackPack. They can then open the message, listen to it, and respond to it.

Sounds like a fun tool, but will it catch on? We tried it at my office, and it died out pretty quick after the cool factor died down - like, after one day of use. Other tools, like Google Talk and Skype, still find usage in my everyday work flow. But YackPack didn't quite catch on. I still think it is a step in the right direction.

The biggest problem for us was that YackPack has a funky interface that is unusual to learn. It's not hard, it just is so different from how e-mail is set-up. I think they could greatly improve "the Yack" if they just made the message retrieval and response system function and interface like e-mail currently does, rather than create an entirely new system. It takes a good chunk of time to learn the voice recording side of it as it is - so leave something in there that is familiar at least.

I've also seen tools that create online voice-based discussion boards. I've discussed this concept on Moodle discussion boards in the past. Martin Dougiamas, the creator of Moodle, had a great point. If all of your discussion is in a voice recording, you can't quote someone and respond to that particular chunk. You also can't search through the voice messages to even find a specific quote. You have to listen to the whole thing all over again. It's just a much slower, time consuming way of doing asynchronous discussion.

I think another good reason that text-based e-mail and discussion will continue to dominate voice-based alternatives is the silence factor. You can type e-mail without having to close the office door for privacy. That can't happen with YackPack.

Google Talk is probably more of the step in the right direction - messages recorded and sent to an email address still show up as an e-mail, but you can play the voice recording straight from the e-mail (built-in player is included, if the recipient has Gmail). It would be nice for them to give the options of then responding to the message in voice or text, but for now the only option is text. Also the built-in player in Gmail is Flash-based, so it should be easy to send that player to non-Gmail addresses, too - but so far you can't.

The possibilities are there, and the ideas are in motion... so it will be interesting to see how these pan out.

Heroes Still Rocks

2006-12-05T09:36:00.000-08:00

Yep - so far I have been watching every episode of the new Heroes TV show. And, yep - they all still rock. I guess I like Sci-Fi, so maybe I was pre-destined to love this show. But my wife likes it also. If you haven't seen any of Heroes yet (or have missed some), you can watch every episode online here.

So, my question is, which do you think it is?

IF you "save the cheerleader", THEN you "save the world"

- OR -

FIRST, "save the cheerleader", NEXT "save the world"

I tend to go for the second one. Or maybe some kind of combination of both. But I also have a theory about that painting of Hiro "fighting" a T-Rex. Most of those paintings have still come true. For example, Jackie and Claire look the same, so how do we know it wasn't Jackie getting killed in those paintings? And, they don't always show what we think they show. Remember the painting of Peter dead? Well, he did die, but then he absorbed the healing powers of Claire and came back to life.

So, the painting of Hiro fighting a dinosaur? I think he is just retrieving the sword from a museum when he starts pretending to fight with a statue of a dino. Why do I think this? Because there is no way that NBC can afford the CGI of a dinosaur in a TV show. Unless there is a Heroes movie in the works? Hmmm.....

SlideShare: Share Your PowerPoints Online

2006-12-01T10:07:00.000-08:00

What is my deal with PowerPoint recently? I guess I have really been looking for ways to do PowerPoints online. I love Google's efforts to put Office-like applications online. But they are missing the whole PowerPoint deal. I think that online PowerPoints would have great online educational purposes. For example, take the ZohoShow that I wrote about earlier. Record an audio lecture to go along with that online using something like Odeo, and embed the audio player underneath the Slideshow. You will then have an online lecture that appeals to audio, visual, and kinesthetic learners (they have to manually click to go the next slide).

One tool that I found interesting as I searched for an online PowerPoint solution was SlideShare. SlideShare is a tool that works like YouTube, but for PowerPoint presentations. In fact, the layout and functionality are pretty much the same. The difference with ZohoShow is that with Zoho, you can create and edit the PowerPoints online. SlideShare just allows you to upload and display completed PowerPoints. But it still works nice. And, it's free.

ZohoShow and SlideShare both do not support animations or slide transition effects. The animations part is important to point out because, if you have something that appears in order on a slide - say, a series of pictures - that effect will be lost once you upload the presentation to either site. Especially those that like to bulleted list items appear one at a time. The way to get around this is to create one slide for each effect that you want to add (using PowerPoints copy and paste slide feature) and then upload it. Here is the same PowerPoint from my earlier post uploaded into SlideShare:

Talk to Me: Meebo

2006-11-29T07:39:00.000-08:00

I guess you could say that the Internet is all about communication. For the most part, one way communication seems to be the norm. There are many two way, real time tools out there. Many of them I like. But Meebo has caught my eye.

The main goal of Meebo is consolidate your IM accounts into one place. Sounds good - even though I really don't have any IM accounts. Well, other than Google Talk. I think the main reason for that is the fact that there are so many out there. Meebo kind of solves that dilemma. Use them all at once.

The thing that really caught my attention is the new little widget that is appearing at the side of this page - MeeboMe. I've always looked for a good program that allows you to chat with your web site visitors in real time, as they visit the page, no matter what they may or may not have installed. With tools like Skype, you can put a piece of code on your site that will let visitors see when you are on Skype, and then they can open Skype and talk to you. Which isn't that great on work computers that block Skype.

Now, I love Skype. But MeeboMe solves the "work computer" problem some of us face. MeeboMe allows any visitor to your site to start a chat with you through the site itself, not another program. And, as a Meebo user, you can see visitors on your site and send them messages. Of course, you may not know who it is - but still sounds fun. Visitors do have the option of putting in a name for you to see. Kind of slick.

I think that this would be great for professors and teachers to use, also. I think I saw a function in there that allows you to start a group chat. Great tool for office hours. And, you can have multiple widgets on multiple sites, allowing for professional chats and personal chats.

Bond is Back: Casino Royale

2006-11-27T07:53:00.000-08:00

Okay, I will have to admit - I don't really get to see that many movies. A lot of them just don't seem that interesting to me. Even less seem interesting to my wife, and I don't like to go alone. And she really doesn't like Sci-Fi.

Luckily, we do both like a good spy/action flick. There have been so many complaints about the choices made for the new James Bond movie, that I decided I really wanted to see it. Of course, the complaints were made before anyone had actually seen the film. Now that it is out, all I can say to the naysayers: HA! The new Bond dude rocks.

I like the new direction of the Bond films. For one: less cheesy unnecessary sexual escapades and one-liners. All of Bonds, umm, "relationships" got tiring and unoriginal after the first few films. At least in this film they get more realistic. I won't spoil anything, but the first girl that Bond runs into would have turned out differently in previous films. And most of his quips got so predictable.

Also, you've got to love this: Bond can make real mistakes in this one. That just rocks.

Of course, the cool gadgets are somewhat missing - but you have to realize that these just had to go to make Bond more realistic. It's hard to believe a film were the hero just always happens to have the tools to deal specifically with the problems that he finds himself in every time. Also, the film is more violent than past Bonds. So, due to that and the fact that the sexuality is not totally gone means that this is not a film for everyone.

So, what about all the complaints that Craig doesn't look like Bond? Tsk, tsk, silly fanboys. He totally nails the Bond that this re-boot is trying to create. The new Bond is dead serious about his license to kill. The new Bond can kill you with his cool gaze. The new bond actually looks like he exercises. Brosnan was the perfection of the original movie Bond that Connery started. Craig is the perfection of a new Bond in a post-Bourne Identity movie world.

ZohoShow: Online PowerPoint Presentations

2006-11-20T11:43:00.000-08:00

If you can't tell, I love Web2.0 applications. Some of them are pretty rough, some are really good, but all show incredible potential.

One of the interesting developments in the Web2.0 revolution has been the offering of (usually free) online versions of expensive office applications. Microsoft Word and Excel Spreadsheets have some serious competition with Tools like Writely and Google Docs. Oppsss.... Those are the same thing now.

Anyway, i have always wondered if anyone would create an online version of PowerPoint. And my questions were answered. ZohoShow is one of the first online presentation competitors to enter the market.

So, how does it work? Well, it's still new. I like some of what I see. Create and edit presentations online, anywhere. Upload existing PowerPoint presentations. Collaborate on documents. Present remotely from anywhere in the world to anywhere. Well, probably not in the wilds of the Amazon, but anywhere with Internet connection. Also, you can embed html into the presentations, opening it up to a whole range of stuff that PowerPoint can't do. Nice.

There are some downfalls, as this is an early version. The templates that you love in Microsoft probably aren't there. Backgrounds in general are a problem - it seems like you are only allowed one size (the original size), not a scalable size that resizes based on window size. Also, animations are not available. The upload function is pretty weak on graphic quality preservation. Also, when you are doing a slideshow presentation, it doesn't cover the whole screen (even though I have seen websites that do that). But it's a good start.

Below is the PowerPoint presentation that I presented at the IOL 2006 conference. Just click on it to get the frames to advance (or right click to go back). I uploaded the PowerPoint from my computer, had to fix a few buggy places, and then embedded it here. You can see the background problems below:

Google World

2006-11-16T08:25:00.000-08:00

Yep. Google will own you someday. You will just be a piece of data in their Big Brother global database of human DNA database or whatever. But until then, I sure am enjoying everything that they have to offer.

Of course, there is Gmail, one of the coolest email functions in the world. In addition to the massive amount of storage space (you never really delete e-mail, just search through it to fins old stuff with a search program that works great), you also get threaded conversations. Replies are stored in link of messages that lets you quickly read through the history of the conversation. Except for those people that constantly like to rename every reply they give. There is also a chat function that lets you chat with another Gmail user that is signed in. It even tells you when the other person is typing a response to you. Spooky, but it still rocks.

And I'm not even going to go into how cool Google docs is (online Word doc and spreadsheet creator that you can work on projects collaboratively with people around the world). That just speaks for itself.

Oh, yeah.... this blog is created on Blogger, which is Google. Blatant plug there....

I have been loving on Google Talk and Personalized homepage recently. Google now owns my life. Hope they don't turn to the dark side soon....

Google Talk is kind of like a lite version of Skype. You can call other Google Talk users online for free. You can also send files to people using Google Talk. And there is a nice mail notice that pops up on the screen when you get a new e-mail. But the really cool function of Google talk is the Voicemail function. You can leave a voice mail on someone else's email. If the person uses Gmail, they get a nice play button that plays in in their inbox. Other email accounts have to download the mp3 and play it in something else. It's just a great tool for sending messages that might be misunderstood in text only.

Personalized homepage just flat out rocks. You can create a home page with customized content and tabs. Anywhere in the world you sign in, it shows you what you add there. But it's the content that makes it rock. The picture above is a capture of my first "tab." You can create as many tabs as you want, each with custom content. Here's what I have on my first tab:

Google Calendar, which shows me all of my upcoming events.
Gmail monitor - shows my inbox
Current weather for my town
A to-do list
Quick search Ebay and Wikipedia
Notepad - take notes on what I need to.

The next two tabs are my news tabs - one for general news (world, weird, CNN, aintitcool.com, Star Wars and Sci-fi), and one for Educational Technology news. The fourth tab is the cool tab - my fun stuff:

MySpace profile alerts - see if I have new comments, messages, etc
NASA's picture of the day
Links to favorite comics - Dilbert, Zits, and Calvin & Hobbs
New Urban Legends :)
Google maps quick search
Pac-man!

You can literally choose from hundreds of applications to add to your page. Don't you wish you had Gmail now? Everything comes with your free Gmail account.

Obscure Old Music: This Picture

2006-11-15T11:01:00.000-08:00

I made some great techie geek discoveries over the last day or so that I really wanted to write about into today's blog. But, on the way to work, I was listening to a CD from 1994 from a band that never made it that big called This Picture. The album is called City of Sin. Since I know that 2/3 of my massive readership want to find out my thoughts on music, I thought "better not totally bore the non-techies out there." Even though they never comment....

I wish that I could find some kind of sample online to refer to here, but that's just how forgotten this album is. Apparently, This Picture had a minor hit with the song "Naked Rain" off of their debut album Violent Impression. Violent is a decent album, but City of Sin is the crowning achievement of This Picture.

So, what does it sound like? Well, imagine if Bono joined a moody, alternative band that had equal amounts piano and guitar in all songs, and started writing really ultra-poetic lyrics, and you would have it.

"Climbing the walls of doubt don't you know,
For tonight we could reach it, if you'd only show the world"

"So lay your hands on my soul,
It's there to be taken whole"

"A man will lie for his lines
In his natural crimes
To have guilt in these times
You must read between the lines"

The interesting thing is that the only place I ever read about This Picture was in a Christian music magazine review. There is nothing else to indicate what their beliefs are, so I guess I can't comment on that. But, the same magazine did a positive review of U2 at the time (which, if I remember correctly, was why I was reading that magazine), so I guess they could be trusted.

Oh, yeah - I got both of This Pictures cds from Amazon for a penny. Yep. One whole cent + shipping.

Me And My Big Ideas

2006-11-14T09:32:00.000-08:00

I used to sit around staring at my CD cases for a long time. No, I wasn't having a nervous breakdown. And I don't do drugs, so forget bad acid trips. I used to think about how some day laptop computers would be about the size of two open CD cases put next to each other. In fact, if we could get rid of the need for a frame around a screen, they could even fold in half once you closed this screen.

But then I had the thought: what if we just put a computer in a small pen like device, and had the keyboard and screen coming out of two small projectors: one would project the keyboard on the desk in front of us, and the other would project the screen as a hologram in front of our face. Scientists are already making progress on holograms, but the idea of this computer I had is far away. Until I saw this:

To quote my Mom: "I should patented that idea when I had it!"

Second Life Does Have Educational Potential

2006-11-14T09:13:00.000-08:00

CNN has a great article today about schools that use Second Life for educational purposes:

Growing number of educators explore 'Second Life' online

The most important quote is this one, from Rebecca Nesson, who teaches a class that is offered online through Harvard and uses Second Life:

"Students interact with each other and there's a regular sense of classroom interaction. It feels like a college campus"

So there is a growing number of people that are using Second Life for virtual online education. Think of it this way. I was in Second Life once for a conference on a product called Sloodle. I'll have to blog on Sloodle later. I was chatting with someone else in there. I could see his avatar, and could tell a lot about his personality by the way he was typing. Then he mentioned that he was actually in London at that time. So, there I was - having an online conversation, for free with someone in London. And there are companies out there that are working on audio integration tools for Second Life. I guess Holodecks are coming soon, huh?

The Impending Birth of Web 3.0

2006-11-13T07:56:00.000-08:00

So, did you even know that Web2.0 is already here? You probably use it every day. But now, researchers are looking beyond 2.0 into the next next generation of the web: 3.0.

Web 2.0 is really a concept in web design that uses existing technology. Google and Amazon are probably the most well-known examples. In fact, Web2.0 is a term that has already been copyrighted by the O-Reilly network. Web2.0 basically means the "read/write" web. Basically, Web1.0 sites are sites that are read only. You go there, read what they have to offer, maybe do a search to get there, and then move on.

Web2.0 means that you the user can contribute to the content of the site. Or, the site keep information for you that you can come back and edit. Wikipedia and Writely are two examples of this. Well, Writely is now a part of Google. Like everything will be someday.

This is also the point to why Google and Microsoft are going head to head. Google is spearheading the movement to take applications off of the desktop and put them online, where they can be accessed by today's mobile generation, and collaborated on by multiple people simultaneously. Microsoft, of course, doesn't like this.

And now, Google is once again jumping into the ring with Web3.0, or the semantic web. The basic goal for this is smart searches that mimic artificial intelligence. Many people feel that AI won't ever exist - but that's not the point. Web3.0 will just appear to look like AI.

It goes like this. If you want to search for a vacation spot, you have to do some vague searches that gives you a long list of results to search through. The goal for Web3.0 is to let you give a very specific, long search command that would return the specific results for you. For example, you could tell a vacation search all the details that you want for your vacation - spotless rooms, first week of July, secluded beach, Caribbean, kid friendly, etc, etc - and you would get back a vacation package that matched your request exactly. Because the search engine would know the difference between spotless and really clean, for example, when it searches through customer reviews of popular vacation destinations.

This is all really far off in the future, but it's starting to be the direction that research money is being filtered. Should be interesting. This article in the New York Times has some more information on Web3.0.

And, can I say how much I LOVE the new Firefox2.0 spell checker? It makes doing blog posts soooo much easier.....

Obligatory Firefox 2.0 Post

2006-11-10T11:38:00.000-08:00

Today, I felt particularly band-wagonish, so I decided to post about the new version of Firefox browser. You've probably read a million blogs about the new Firefox 2.0. If not, you should catch up with the rest of the cool people in the world and get it. Internet Explorer is so 2001. Come be indie snobbish cool like the rest of us. And then join us for some chai and whiney-boo-hoo band music at Star(ting-to-get-all-of-my) Bucks.

Wait, wait, wait! Before you get hacked at me and decide to go see if you have gotten any MySpace comments since your last 2 minute check-in - I am just kidding! I love Firefox, funky caffenated drinks, and Seattle's most successful missionary effort. Just feeling playful and all.

So, anyway - all I have to say about Firefox is tabs and extensions! They all get better in 2.0. But since there about 2 billion extensions to choose from, I decided to add my favorites here:

FoxyTunes
Control your iTunes, Media Player, etc from in browser.
IE Tab
Let's you switch a tab to see what a page looks like in IE
JSView
View the source code of external JS and CSS files
HTMLValidator
Quick visual clue if you are XHTML Transitional compliant. Gives you a detailed list of where the errors are.
Web Developer
A whole bunch of web design tools that I haven't had time to explore - but I like what I see.
FireBug
"FireBug lets you explore the inner workings of Web pages. All of the tools you need to debug and perfect your JavaScript, CSS, HTML, and Ajax are brought together into one seamless experience, including HTML and CSS inspectors, a debugger, error console, and command line." Wow.
GreaseMonkey
"Greasemonkey allows you to customize Web pages by adding “user scripts,” which are small JavaScript files, to change their style. Now you can easily control any aspect of a Web page’s design or interaction."
FireFTP
FireFox + FTP. Nice.
Zotero
Extension for research needs. Allows you to take notes in-browser and collect and store materials (PDF, images, webpages, etc).

Yeah - a lot of those were definitely tech-geeky. Sorry to the non-tech geeks out there. But, for the music fans - Foxy Tunes does rock.

Sitar Grunge Rock: Christopher Lee Freeman

2006-11-09T07:44:00.000-08:00

I have been trying not to rave too much about my favorite musician, Michael Knott. Mainly because I know that he will have some new stuff out soon and there will be chances to go on and on about his musical genius later. So, I should take this chance to yabber on about other artists that I like.

Those that know me know that I have a huge interest in Middle Eastern and Indian music. What I really love is when someone mixes eastern and western music. Christopher Lee Freeman is one of those artists. Any one that has visited my MySpace page has probably had a chance to hear a Freeman song.

Mr. Freeman first came to my attention as the guitarist for a Christian Creed-clone band called G.S. Megaphone. I'm not much of a Creed fan, so I didn't pay much attention to them. One day, I read a random review somewhere about GS Megaphone going all world music on us, due to Chris's travels to India and purchase of a sitar. Luckily, I found that album on Ebay for a buck :) Gotta love Ebay. While I had to say that the world music influences on a few tracks were kind of there, it was still a Creed album. Actually, it was better than most Creed stuff, but still not my thing.

Anyway, GS Megaphone called it a day, and I started hearing rumors about Chris was doing solo albums of sitar music and loud guitars mixed together. My wife and I were already hooked on a Christian rock/worship Indian band called Aradhna that did the same sound, so I decided to check out Chris. I will have to blog about Aradhna soon, too. So, anyway, a few Google searches and two MySpace pages later and I was hooked.

Chris's music is really loud guitars and heavy Indian influenced sonic perfection on every track. The thing about most world music fusion is that it usually is mostly western music with a few ethnic beats thrown in, or eastern music with a slight jazz feel. Seldom is it a true mix of east and west. Chris's music is a really good blend of both. And all instrumental. So it just rocks.

So there.

Check out his music on his two MySpace pages:
http://www.myspace.com/christopherleefreeman
http://www.myspace.com/clfmusic

You Need To Get a (Second) Life

2006-11-08T08:09:00.000-08:00

Okay - so there are about a ba-zillion blogs out there that start off with that title. But Second Life is an interested development in the education and business world. It's been around for a while, but after some people started making some real money in this virtual world - the real world started to take notice.

It seems like there are some that have negative opinions of it, and some that love it, and a lot that just don't care. There also seems to be many people that just complain about it being full of porn and gambling. Well, so is the web - but they don't complain about that. I've never run into anything like that in Second Life, but then again - I don't look for it. Hmmm.... interesting concept. You don't find junk if you don't go looking for it.

Any way, Second Life is an online world that looks like a lot of the 3-D immersion games that exist online. The only deal is - it's not a game. There is no point, no levels, no prizes to win. You just meet people, buy stuff, go places that interest you, learn stuff, and - well - just generally exist there.

My colleagues and partners in crime over at UT Dallas got me hooked on SL. My wife says I really smile when I am on there. Which doesn't happen that much because Matt Man needs a newer faster computer at home. Mine is already two whole years old! Geez - that's, like, ancient in the computer world! And I call myself a techie....

Anyway - i have been exploring it for educational purposes. There is neat stuff in there. I have attended in world presentations with people from around the world. There are simulations of everything from molecules to the solar system, from real life buildings to active ecosystems. Historical re-enactments, plays, concerts, art galleries, and even a Godzilla wreaking havoc all exist in world. Pretty crazy. Oh - and your in world avatar can fly and stay underwater indefinitely.

Anyway, I have been keeping a photo journal of my few in-world travels. As soon as I get a chance, I will get the Flickr feed up here in this blog.

Also, you can see one of the UTD crew's exploration of SL at her blog. Great pictures there.

Podcast Tools: Podium and Odeo

2006-11-07T08:36:00.000-08:00

Podcasting is a tool that I love, but never have the time for. Well, that and I don't exactly have a radio-quality voice. Not even close, actually. But I guess that hasn't stopped a lot of people from doing it anyway.

There are many tools out there to help record podcasts. A new one that is coming out caught my eye: Podium. I guess it really is a mix of a sound editor and a podcast creator. Nice combination. The best part is the intro video in the link. It really just gives a basic run-down of what a podcast is. So, the next time that someone looks at me with a blank stare and asks "what is a podcast?" I think I will refer them to this link. From what I understand, Podium will have an educational focus. But I wonder how much it will cost.

The only negative that I see with Podium is the fact that it has to be installed on your Desktop to work. Probably the best online tool I have seen for creating podcasts is Odeo. You can record your podcast in your browser, or upload one from your computer. Odeo then puts together all of the feeds and tags for your audio. Pretty nice. Of course, they aren't the best for a podcast that mixes music and voice (if you want to record it online). But they do handle the hosting for you, as well as giving you a flash player that can be pasted in any web site. I wonder how long it will be before Google buys them (or a competitor).

Linux Goes Educational

2006-11-06T12:19:00.000-08:00

I've always been a fan of open source programs (OpenOffice, Moodle, FireFox, phpBB, etc). A friend of mine at church (Andrew) started telling me about a Linux project targeted specifically for educational purposes called Edubuntu. I haven't really even ever gotten to install or play with Linux yet, but I like what I see with Edubuntu. They are dedicated to keeping their project free, and to updating it once every six months or so. It also comes out of the box with a great set of free tools for Office applications, music recording, graphics creation, and a ton of other stuff. (See the full list of features here).

Now, this version of Edubuntu is for high schoolers or younger, but they are planning on targeting this for colleges soon. Of course, I'm sure that it is not as macked out as the Windows stuff it is attempting to immitate - but it is free! And, it is designed to work great on old machines that can't do the fancy stuff of the current generation of supercomputers. Nice ideas at work.

New Music: Coriolis

2006-11-01T12:59:00.000-08:00

If you know me and my musical tastes, you've probably heard a scary rumor: I was a hair metal freak in high school. The sad truth is - I still am one. Bang your head!

Anyway, my tastes have diversified over the years. One style of music that I love now is industrial metal. Something about guitars, samples, and synthesizers that I just love. There haven't been that many new industrial metal bands out there since Monsterus disappeared several years ago. I was listening to a sampler of new music on the way to work today and finally found one worth checking out: Coriolis. there were actually two other wanna-be industrial metal songs on the sampler, but they weren't that good. Here is what I found out about Coriolis from their site:

Coriolis, (formerly known as Thundara,) is a synth-metal project based in Northeastern Pennsylvania. It is the goal of Coriolis to redefine the way dark music is perceived, by making thought-provoking music that shatters past stereotypes.

The lyrics of two Coriolis songs are currently being published by the International Library of Poetry, who recognized these poems as "excellent."

Musical influences range widely from Rammstein and Rob Zombie, to Dream Theater, Metallica and Yanni. Industrial and ethereal keyboard sequences compliment driving rhythm guitars to produce a truly unique sound with diverse melodies.

Other releases I am looking forward to:

U2's new greatest hits album
Robert Randolph & the Family Band - Colorblind
The Rough Guide to the Music of Iran
Kula Shaker - III
Struck Last May - 16 Flowers

Heroes is Best New Show in a While

2006-10-31T12:18:00.000-08:00

My wife and I don't really get that hooked on TV shows that much. We are still watching the Amazing Race, and I try to catch Lost when I can. I would also love to watch Sci-Fi stuff like Stargate, Battlestar Galactica, and re-runs of Firefly.... but that would require cable. And I'm just too cheap to but cable.

the new show that I am really liking is Heroes. It's the story about ordinary people that discover they have extraordinary powers. And now they are discovering that they are also destined to save the world. Naturally. Because discovering that you have secret powers is really boring if you just sit on the couch and levitate potato chips into your mouth all day long. Or slices of fruit into your sweetie's mouth. *cough*Anakin-get-a-life*cough*

Some people think that Heroes is like X-Men meets Lost. Ummm.... well, I guess that would work as a description. They also have a lot of interesting online exclusives that tie into the show, like comic stories that add plot details, a "blog" by one of the main characters, and even MySpace pages for some of teen age characters. Even though statistics show that over half the people that use MySpace are over 30. And, I mean the legal, nice users - not the sicko child stalkers.

So, as I mourn the loss of Alias, I have found a new distraction to get over the pain of never finding out what the heck is the deal with Rambauldi anyway.