The view from here
5 Jul
A few years back, a guy tried this, lost the gun, and wandered into LAX airspace.
From snopes.com
Now, there’s a guy trying it for real to go from central Oregon to Idaho (let’s hope there’s no restricted airspace near him): Yahoo story
22 May
It would be true greatness for Gabe and Tycho to write a middling review of this game. Cause that’s what it is so far.
2 May
Saw Eddie Izzard last night at DAR Constitution Hall last night with J. The acoustics were horrible, so I only caught about 85% of the show. It was pretty fresh, unlike Sexie. He did riffs on Wikipedia (pulling out an iPhone on stage to look something up in Wikipedia), Apple vs PC Software updates, god vs. no god, the history of the world, intelligent design vs. evolution, and how some figures from the bible were probably real. Many God and Dinosaur impressions - no Sean Connery, no James Mason. Oh yeah, and no womens’ clothing.
The DC crowd was a bit antsy since the show started almost 30 minutes late and, as mentioned, the acoustics sucked. There was a lot of yelling from the audience for Eddie to this this and that, which he took graciously for most of the show. Some of his stuff did fall flat (there was a lot more of the “scribbling notes to self about not using this joke or that joke” than in the previous acts I’ve seen).
Dressed to Kill still sets the bar, but, in my opinion, this takes the second spot easily.
8 Apr
We have put up a wedding site at www.rajandjae.org. Details / stories / updates will be there more than here.
4 Nov
Time for a generic update of how things are going: Updates on work, wedding, my (limited) free time, and travels.
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14 May
NBC announced its Fall lineup, and Studio 60 has been canned. This makes Sorkin 1 for 3 in his recent endeavors (well, 1.5 for three since critics liked Sportsnight). I will miss the witty banter. Time to go watch my stash of West Wing I guess…. boo
7 Apr
Spent last week in Texas, on the Rio Grande Border near Harlingen, Browsville and South Padre Island. Interesting trip.
- The reason for the trip was to look at how CBP and ICE handle illegals they catch. I had a lot of respect for these guys before, and even more now. And a better understanding of the systems used and the shortcoming and frustrations they have.
- Had a preconception that that area was going to be flat, with just scrub and cattle as far as the eye could see. Only the flat part was right. The area felt more like Florida than anything else. Didn’t see any cattle at all (though King Ranch was about ten miles to north)
- Funniest part of the trip - when leaving Harlingen via Valley International Airport, there’s a sign at the airport exit that says “Next time fly to Brownsville”. I suppose it means that next time rather than driving to Browsville, you could fly, but it’s funnier if you read it the other way.
25 Mar
After a long week with a key workshop with the client (in which double the number of clients showed up than were originally expected), I unwrapped my Wii Play with high expectations for fun and entertainment.
Man, was I disappointed.
I was expecting something akin to Wii Sports, with fun, engrossing games, a skilled opponent in the Wii, and great multi-player plan. What I got was a game that rewards precise control of the Wii Controller and a steady hand. Ping pong, the shooting game, and the air-hockey clone are the best, but that’s not saying much at all. Fishing looks like it was put together at the last second.
Compared to Wii Sports, the Wii Play game is a dud. The only good thing about it is that I got a fourth remote out of it.
16 Mar
Driving into work on Thursday, J had the radio tuned to WMAL - which is a right of center (at best of times) radio station that carries Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh among their more well known commentators. Fred Thompson was filling in for Paul Harvey at the 8:30 “news” break, and finished his broadcast with this gem:
I feel bad for Nancy Pelosi, AND her neighbors. Anti-war activists from the group Code Pink have been giving her the same treatment the president gets at his Crawford, Texas, ranch. Camping on her San Francisco lawn, they’re demanding she cut off funds to the troops in Iraq.
Besides coolers and mattresses, protesters have brought along a giant paper mache statue of Mahatma Gandhi, who is pretty much the symbol of the anti-war movement. Code Pink was founded on his birthday, and when Saddam Hussein was being given a last chance to open Iraq to U.N. weapons inspectors, posters appeared around America asking “What would Gandhi do?”
And that’s a pretty good question. At what point is it okay to fight dictators like Saddam or the al Qaeda terrorists who want to take his place?
It turns out that the answer, according to Gandhi, is NEVER. During World War II, Gandhi penned an open letter to the British people, urging them to surrender to the Nazis. Later, when the extent of the holocaust was known, he criticized Jews who had tried to escape or fight for their lives as they did in Warsaw and Treblinka. “The Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife,” he said. “They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs.” “Collective suicide,” he told his biographer, “would have been heroism.”
The so-called peace movement certainly has the right to make Gandhi’s way their way, but their efforts to make collective suicide American foreign policy just won’t cut it in this country. When American’s think of heroism, we think of the young American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, risking their lives to prevent another Adolph Hitler or Saddam Hussein.
Gandhi probably wouldn’t approve, but I can live with that.
© PAUL HARVEY SHOW, ABC RADIO NETWORKS
Now, having read a few books on Gandhi, this wasn’t news to me. But the red flags were going off in the back of my head. My belief at the time was that Thompson was pulling his most controversial quotes out of context, and sure enough, there is nuance to all three of Gandhi’s quotes. Sure enough, Wikiquote provides some of the key missing context:
I will be the first to admit that Gandhi’s ideas don’t make the most sense, but that’s with the perfect vision of hindsight. But at least someone should point out that Senator Thompson may have left out some of the critical ideas…. especially as he debates running for President in a field where some on the right and more on the far right are looking for a truly conservative candidate.
14 Mar
Picked up a copy of MLB 07: The Show for the PSP. The 2006 version was pretty much welded into my PSP, so when the 07 version came out, I grabbed it. It’s playing pretty well, and it’s a good upgrade - graphics, play, commentary all have been tweaked to be better. Lineups are pretty up to date (though, the Red Sox have the mystery “T. Baik” as a fourth starter - there must by MLB union or licensing issues with using Dice-K).
I have, however, noticed some bugs. A 3-5-X double play instead going 3-1-X, with the pitcher still standing on the mound (thereby killing any chance at a double play). My favorite bug, though, has been in the movie below. I took a digital video of the replay off the PSP, so the quality is crap, but you should be able to see what’s going on… The ball is hit deep into the gap - it is an easy double, and the runner, apparently was thinking triple all the way… and basically decided to take a shortcut.
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"Star Wars: Force Unleashed"Repetitive at times, but decent story and quality thus far
"Spore"