Disjointed Digression

Yesterday, at work one of our copiers would not copy or scan pages from the tray on top. You know those trays that suck in the paper and spit it out below, and in seconds a copy comes out of the copier. Being more of a computer guy than a copier guy, I went and looked at it. And couldn’t figure it out, because if you made a copy the old fashioned way “on the glass” it worked. I looked at it opening doors, cleaning the little glass strip that scans the pages from the tray. But I couldn’t figure it out. I also made a rookie mistake, which I’ll come back to later.

So I called the copier repair guy. I figured he’d show up today, but yesterday at 4:30 he arrived. Well, he gets to looking at it, commenting on how weird it is that it will copy the other way, etc. I tell him the few things I tried, and he nods and checks some things then turns to me and says “Did you threaten it?”
Now, I took this as a joke. Seeing how I like to joke I went along. “Yeah, I did.” I respond. Then there is a pause. I can see I have inadvertently taken the wind out of this guy’s sails. I’m guessing he didn’t have anywhere to go from there. I guess no one had told him yes to that. I figured that he was going to have a follow up, or good punch line after the threaten remark. But I guess not. Now there is a slight awkward silence.
I’m feeling kind of bad. Then I get to feel stupid. He turns off the copier, and turns it back on. He runs a paper through the tray and it copies fine. It turns out that one of the scanning components had not returned to “home” position and restarting it will make it return there. With that, he’s done.

I’ve found a few movie trailers of films that I’m looking forward to seeing:

Watch the trailer! ’nuff said.

This looks goofy/funny and violent.

Spider-man 3. Venom!

I was not a big fan of the original Fantastic Four movie, but the Silver Surfer just looks soo fuckin’ cool!

BTW the pics are links to the trailers.

So I decided to check out Google Reader. It’s a RSS reader, you can collect all the blogs/news sites you read there an have them in one place. Of course you need to have a Google account, but you can make one on the login screen. Of course, if you have a gmail account you can use that to login in. I dropped Candy’s blog into, Dubious Quality, and Lifehacker to try it out. I think it’s pretty cool. I bet it has more features than use, but I think its a good app. If you use firefox, you can get a plugin/script to include google reader into gmail.

The other day as I was perusing digg.com, I found an interesting article. The title was “Xbox 360 (with Hardrive) $339″. I thought maybe Microsoft had decided to lower the price… But wouldn’t they go to $349.99 instead of $339? Seeing how I don’t have an Xbox 360, I figured I’d check it out. The link took me here. In the event that sit goes away, it’s a deal site, one that tells you about good buys you can find from various websites or sometimes brick and mortar stores. This deal was for 15% off at Overstock.com. 15% off a $399 Xbox 360 = $339. Just the day before I had thought about buying one at a local Gamestop or Bestbuy. So I figured I can’t pass up a saving of $70. There was a catch, of course. You had to buy something that was not entertainment related with the Xbox 360 to get the discount. The site had some “filler” ideas. One of which was a cushioned mailer for 88 cents. So I raced over to Overstock.com via the link on the site and added an Xbox 360, a second wireless controller, a game and an 88 cent cushioned mailer to my cart. I hit checkout and BAM! $75 off. I had all of it for less than an Xbox 360 (+ tax) at a local store. Now I had a feeling that it was going to a mistake on Overstock’s part, that I’d get an email saying “Sorry, we won’t sell you the Xbox 360, but if you really want that cushioned mailer…”
No such email came, instead I got an email confirming the purchase and later one saying it had shipped.
Jump forward two days, I’m getting ready to go to sleep so I can get up in the evening and go to work, when there is a knock on the door. It’s the UPS man! He has a sizable box! It says Overstock.com! I barely contain myself as a scribble my name on the LCD tracking pad thingy.
I rush back in the house and open the box… See the contents below

I began to laugh hysterically.
I had gotten the first of 2 shipments. A box that was about 1 foot by 2 foot by 1 foot with a cushioned mailer in it. I had a great laugh at the situation.

With Verizon, I have the “new every two” as part of my calling plan. A few weeks ago, my two years was almost up, so I went into the local Verizon store and picked out a phone that I wanted to upgrade to. I picked the Samsung SCH-a930.
I got to the counter and waited for the person in front of me was finished. I noticed that it took him a long time. When I got to the counter, I was told that the store was having problems with their computer system. A really loooong time. I figured I’d wait, I had nothing else to do since it was a night off for me. So I told them I’d wait. I was told that it might be over an hour, that was at nine thirty. At ten fifteen I was told that the store would call me and let me know when everything was done. So I went home and goofed off on the computer. At about noon, when I was planning on going to bed, the UPS guy showed up with a new Heatsink/fan for my PC. My PC had been running a little hot. I installed the Heatsink/fan, and again as I was going to bed, I was interrupted, Verizon called and said everything would be ready soon. At about 1:30 I had my new phone, came home and crashed.
As for the phone itself, I know it looks like a pager when its closed, but I think that’s part of what makes it cool. It’s different. I was thinking of getting a silver razr, but figured that since I already had a black razr, and that razrs were everywhere, I’d get something different. I must say that after using the phone (as much as I use my cell phone) for a few weeks, that I really dig it. It has good reception, and I good volume. I don’t think I will ever use all the features. Honestly, I have a digital camera, so I hardly ever use the camera on a phone, I have an ipod, so I don’t ever use a phone as a music player. A phone as a music player would drain the phone battery too quickly, in my opinion. Overall I dig the phone, it’s different, cool looking, and works really well.
Even though it took a long time to get it from Verizon, I think it was worth it. ANd I really can’t fault Verizon, computer problems happen.

Yeah, so this past week I got a year older. Candy showered me with DVDs! Apparently she passed “Know your Geek 101″ with flying colors. She got me Babylon 5 Seasons 2-5 and X-Files Seasons 4-6. She is too good to me! We didn’t make a big fuss about the birthday, we went out to eat at the Macaroni Grill and that was about it.
Other than that I’ve not been doing a whole lot other than work and playing World of Warcraft.

Let’s Talk About Movies
I haven’t been watching as many movies as I used to. More and more I’ve been saying “I’ll wait for that to come to DVD”. What is kind of odd is that I’ll be all about seeing a movie at the cinema, but the week after it gets released, I’ll say “I’ll wait for that to come to DVD”. I’ve done that with V for Vendetta, and Da Vinci Code, just to name a few recently. The last movies I went to see in the theater were Ice Age Meltdown (meh the first one was a little better) and The Notorious Bettie Page. I liked The Notorious Bettie Page, it was a fairly good biopic, but I felt like there was something missing from the movie. I can’t say what, but it seemed to lack something. Even though it seemed like something is missing, I recommend it.
Since I’m a comic book nerd, I had to check out the Ghost Rider trailer.
Before seeing the trailer, I had my doubts about Nicolas Cage as Johnny Blaze, but it looks like he might work out. From what I’ve seen in the trailer, I’ll go see the movie, but there is some potential for it to suck, which is the case for any comic book movie. Daredevil and Electra sucked but the trailers were not so bad, from what I remember.
Beav mentioned a pod/video cast called Geekdrome to me. So I checked out the latest episode. IMO, it’s not as good as Diggnation, but I subscribed to it. On Geekdrome they talked about the Superman Returns trailer. Talked is a bit mild, the fawned over it, damn near having an orgasm. I decided to watch this trailer that would change my life…
About 15 seconds into the trailer I remembered that Superman is my least favorite comic book hero. He is the Achilles of comic books. He only has one weakness…going on cocaine binges in Vegas. No wait, that’s not it, Kryptonite, that’s it. That’s his physical weakness, his character flaw is that he is too good. For example Batman has no problem dangling a bad guy from a rooftop to get answers, but I think Superman would frown on that. I really don’t know, since I haven’t read any Superman comics in ages because I think he sucks. But I digress…
Back to the trailer. It’s a Superman movie. It looks slicker than the old ones (obviously). But in essence it’s a movie about an almost invulnerable boy scout. I think I’m going to pass, or possibly I’ll wait for that to come to DVD.
Since I’m on comic book movies I’ll mention that I have not seen X-Men 3. But I have bought tickets to go see it on Sunday. I’m a little excited about the movie, but I find that these days I just can’t get as excited about movies as I used to. I blame this on Hollywood putting out shitty movies for the the past 5-10 years. There have been good movies in those years, don’t get me wrong. But for every Sin City there are 25 Stealths. I guess I’m tired of digging through a mound of shit to find gold flakes. I just hope that it’s not that I have out-grown movies, that I have lost my cinema innocence never to regain that sense of wonderment, the excitement at a trailer.

From the Why the Fuck would you invent this department…
Philips device could force TV viewers to watch ads
“An invention from Royal Philips Electronics prevents TV viewers from switching the channel during commercials or fast-forwarding past commercials when watching DVR content.
Viewers would be released from the freeze only after paying a fee to the broadcaster. The freeze would be implemented on a program-by-program basis, giving viewers a choice at the start of each one. “

I would ask “why?!” but I already know the answer to that question. Money. This will just be another way for the cable company to screw you. Not being able to change channels or fast forward? That is fucked up! This bad idea ranks up there with pay toilets. Even if its only 25 cents to be able to skip commercials, that’s ridiculous! Knowing the cable companies, it will most likely be 99 cents to “unlock” ads in a TV show. Yes, its supposed to be a per show basis. How fucked up would that be? Just before a show starts you get a message asking you if you want to pay to unlock ads. If you say yes, you use your TV how you want, but if you say no, you can’t change channels during ads. I wonder can you change channels during the actual show? I know that this would piss a lot of people off. For example, Candy will watch at least two shows at once. Switching back and forth and keeping both shows going at once. (Personally I have a hard time letting one show rot my brain, much less two or three at once. )
So lets hope that this thing never sees the light of day. Yeah right! I’m sure the cable companies want to start sneaking this thing into the HD DVR set top boxes so they can toss out the lube and screw you till they are blue in the face.

For your pleasure, a nerdlet…
A little while back, Beav told me to check out

ask a ninja.com.
Being a dutiful nerd, I checked it out. Basically the askaninja crew puts up a 1-3 minute video of a ninja answering a question that was emailed to askaninja@gmail.com. It’s pretty funny. It’s very goofy and ridiculous. I highly recommend checking out askaninja.com and don’t forget to look at the archives!

I wandered over to dubious quality well as much as one can wander in cyberspace. But I digress… Where I came across this cool video. It looks like these kids have been playing too much Prince of Persia and/or watching too many Jackie Chan movies. Actually this activity (I don’t quite think its a sport yet) is called either free running or Parkour. I’ve seen a little bit of it before in a few commercials (a kia or scion ad I think) and every time I see someone doing something like this it amazes me. The video I linked above is about 8 minutes long and pretty amazing throughout.

A photo of Free Running that I found over at screwgravity.com not related to the video link above.

This past weekend I went to Wizard World in Dallas. It’s a fairly big comic book convention. The big name stars that were at the convention were Sean Astin famous for Lord of the Rings, Ron Perlman most recently famous for Hellboy, and Summer Glau of Firefly and Serenity. I got to see Ron Perlman and Summer Glau, but I didn’t feel like paying to get their autographs. As for Sean Astin, To get to see him you had to wait in a separate line and you might get a ticket to see him. Honestly, I didn’t want to see him anyway. There is a large “showroom” where everything a fanboy would want would be on sale. I, of course wound up spending too much money buying things that I have actually wanted for a while. For example I picked up an American McGee’s Alice Cheshire Cat statue. I also bought a Maxx statue.

That was on Saturday. On Sunday, Candy took me to the Race for the Cure where we walked the course and got tired for a good cause. Then Candy took me to the Settlement Home for Children Annual charity Garage Sale. Which was payback for me taking her to the comic book convention. So in the two days of the weekend, we walked more than we have in a long time.