I've decided to start messing with the designs of both my blog and my Virb. Hopefully with a bit of practice and learned skill I'll come up with something better. I also have a WordPress migration in mind. But for now, this will have to do.

Sorry no posts in a while. I have some music reviews I'd like to post, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet. But to give you a hint, I've been listening to the new albums by:

• Spoon
• Handsome Furs
• Hail Social
• The National
• Great Northern

Honestly, I'm sorely impressed by them all.

More to come...I swear.

First watch this:



Then watch this:



(find courtesy of my friend Matt)

HBO's got a new comedic series coming out later this month that literally had me rolling on the floor. It's called Flight of the Conchords. The premise? Two New Zealand digi-folk musicians struggle to make a name for themselves in NYC. Before you pass it off as sitcom fluff, I suggest you give it a shot. I've attached one of the more magical moments.

If it's not your thing, that's fine, just promise me you'll at least watch through the party scene on the episode that's found here (it's at the beginning). There's this incredible song that the main characters break into.




That part is actually my favorite element of the show. While much of the series is trying to create an indie mellow drama vibe what with the digital hand cams and the emo-esque apparel of most of the cast, there is this other aspect of song. Admittedly it's a gimmick, but one that works well. There's 3 moments in this episode where the characters break into music. The result is a music video theme, where the characters around them move on as normal. It's best to see it rather than read me, but trust me, the moments are golden. The lyrics are hilarious and, surprisingly, the music is really catchy. (I'm still humming the first tune in my head as I write this)

The show has yet to make its debut, but I think it could be a hit, provided the right audience finds it in time. Here's the upcoming show schedule. Keep your fingers crossed, and keep on giggling.

Was surfing around for header graphics and stumbled upon this gentleman's portfolio. His name is Bill Mudron, and I really love his style! Kinda makes me wanna pull out my old drawing supplies and have at it.

Here's some of my favorites:

Labels: art, artist, comics, design, illustrations

Labels: battlestar galactica, bsg, entertainment, humor, tv

What do you get when you mix Clive Owen, Monica Belucci, Paul Giamatti, and an ass load of guns?

A movie worth drooling over!

Labels: entertainment, movies, shoot 'em up, trailer

I'm a big proponent of IPTV. It will be the future. MSN, it seems, is just now waking up to that.

Here's a brief blog on the subject from one of PC World's editors

Also:

An interesting look at the hopeful demise of Nielson ratings and the rise of DVR stats

Labels: Internet, IPTV, tv

I read the official announcement last night that Season 4 will conclude the epic and awe-inspiring story of Battlestar Galactica. The critically acclaimed but pop-culture shunned series has been in an uphill battle for ratings since its initial conception as a mini-series remake of the horrid original series remembered for being one of television's greatest cheese-fests. Due to that sci-fi connection the new series never caught on with the masses, despite it being one of the greatest written television dramas of our time, and I don't think I'm being excessive when I say that.

The fortunate side of being a show w/ constant budget cuts and the looming cloud of cancellation floating overhead has been the added passion and courage from the writers and production staff to ensure something special and anti-network formulated. Ronald Moore and David Eick have treated their creation with the utmost respect and sincerity, never letting one script fall to the ravenous network wolves who think they know best when it comes to quality vs. ratings. This is so much so that scripts were even written as a slap in the face to the Sci-Fi network which once attempted to dictate a plotline to the creators, a dangerous yet bold move.

Another plus side to this final season is that it was ultimately the direct decision of Moore and Eick. The creators knew that extending past 4 seasons was running the risk of the show canceling according to network requirements and lack of ratings. They also realized about halfway through the third season that they were entering the 3rd and final act of the story as already foreseen to a particular degree by Moore. That being the case, what does this mean for the narrative of the 4th and final season?

Well, from some of the sources I've read, it should mean that there are relatively zero filler stories. No Black Market type eps with stories that have little to no repercussions on the plot as a whole. In an interview with Eick, he stated a solid commitment to wrap up many of the loose ends and explore some rabbit trails that have been left open in past episodes. All this, obviously, leading to the epic conclusion of the show.

I truly believe each episode will be an essential story to bridge us to the conclusion. I'm ecstatic to see what Moore puts together, and I'm sure some big surprises will be at every turn. Ultimately this means I'm very happy that the creators chose to end the series with this 4th season installment. While I'll miss the characters and the incredible drama that ensues with them, I'm confident now that the show will end strong, not limping into redundancies, rabbit trails, and unanswered questions (think X-files and potentially Lost).

Razor, the BSG movie that highlights the initial adventures of Pegasus just after the Cylon attack is due to air this November. Season 4 should begin in January. Expect the DVDs for S3 this August. Oh, and make sure you buy the DVDs! This show uses that revenue to beef up their production budgets. Help the series go out with a bang!

Labels: battlestar galactica, bsg, entertainment, sci-fi, tv

Adult Swim has been so kind as to create 2 online games that will have your coworkers peeking over your cubicle when they hear you laughing in glee. Highly sacrilege but highly hilarious, check them out if you have some time to kill:

5 Minutes to Kill (Yourself)
Experiencing a bit of stress in the workplace? Ever feel like slamming your face in the copy machine or testing that 'ole wives' tale that running with scissors is dangerous? Well now's your chance, but you've only got 5 minutes to pull it off. There's no writing love on your arms in this game (too soon?).






Bible Fight
Throw Moses and Eve in the middle of the Red Sea, and you've got a recipe for a Bible brawl. Pick your favorite Sunday School characters and have at it in this The-Creators-Will-Go-To-Hell game. Please be sure to repent after play.

Labels: adult swim, comedy, games, humor, video games

I finally got my cable setup at the new apartment, probably a mistake in the long run considering I need every bit of encouragement to wander outdoors into the Seattle streets for exploration. Nonetheless, I have it, along with a brand spanking new HD LCD TV and HD DVR.

To test run the DVR and ensure I have all the wonderful and expected options, I stumbled upon a marathon running on BBC America. The show: Hex. I decided what better to test my DVRing skills than a complete marathon. Little did I know that I'd end up spending the better part of the day wrapped up in the supernatural mellow drama.

Okay, so it's nothing phenomonal. I mean, it is, essentially, a British rip off of the campy small network show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Regardless, whether it was the British charm or the anti-episodic story arch plot, the show is incredibly entertaining. Don't get me wrong, it's B-fluff, but fluff done right, like a really good Frank Miller graphic novel or an engaging Joss Whedon space opera (oh Firefly, how do I miss thee).

The story takes place in the modern English countryside amidst ancient castles and humble farms, and without giving too much away, it involves a group of fallen angels trying to bring about the false messiah, fathered by one such fallen by the name of Azazel (a real character in Jewish mythology...an added bonus in my mind). The team of protagonists include 2 witches (falsely titled in my opinion) one of which is an "Annointed One" whose duty it is to weed out and destroy the fallen agents of darkness. To help the witches not witches is the standard clan of teenage ignorants oh, and also a lesbian ghost (long story). To top it off, there's a big focus on the nephilim legends spawned from Genesis 6, an intriguing subject in and of itself.

Be warned, however, the show is surprisingly vulgar. Though some verbiage is edited out, they leave quite a bit in. Also some of the character interactions involve a rather sordid mix of sexual escapades, all of which are capitalized upon for the sake of ratings, I'm sure. Still, the show holds a great deal of intrigue. Despite the inconsistencies with true and sound nephelim mythology (and I use that word loosely), the writers are relatively gutsy in where they take the story, and I'm anxious to see where they take it next. The acting's hit or miss, though there's been some great surprises by the female leads (it might just be the British accents). The overall composition becomes something that takes the entertaining campiness of old and mixes it with some unique narratives and compelling paths of plot.

The show just began its second season last night on BBC America. Check your local listings for schedule lineups. I think it's pretty much every Saturday. If you're a fan of Buffy (which I'm not) or you just love creative supernatural fiction, than I highly recommend the series. Just always remember to practice safe Hex (wow...that was sappy).

Labels: bbc, bbc america, entertainment, hex, supernatural, tv

Currently sitting on 4th Ave. Seattle, sipping a velvety cappucino at All City Coffee, all the while surfing the net (and now blogging). Oh my God! I've become a cliche'!









[Internet gets setup at my pad tomorrow...expect great things]

ars technica spotlighted a new innovation currently in the works. Remember all those countless online forms you've filled out in the past where you have to key in security word into the field? The security word is typically a stretched and skewed graphical word that appears in a box. The reason they do this is to prevent bots and spammers from creating fake accounts and/or garnering legitimate emails and personal information from the form itself. The system, in case you were wondering, is called the Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHA). Now THAT'S an acronym.

Well, it would seem statistically that there are 150,000 man hours spent each day solving these little CAPTCHAs. All that work, simply to verify a form. Carnegie Mellon researchers raise the question, "What if those labor hours could be applied to something practical at the same time?" The result is a new campaign to replace the traditional CAPTCHA with reCAPTCHAs.

Instead of one word, you'll be given two. And while you do the typical form verification while filling it in, you'll also be helping a computer digitize a word that perhaps does not appear in a standard web format. Essentially you'll be helping the Internet learn to read different writings and words. This can improve the library of known words on the net and evolve the OCR (optical character recognition) apps being used across the web.

There's also some anti-spam potential and also a better way to fine-tune systems used to digitize books. Unfortunately, I was a bit unclear on that practicality. Perhaps the original blog I'm referencing would make things clearer to you.

In either case, it's exciting the possibility of using a mundane task to build up an automated computer system exponentially. The scary side, however, is that you're making OCRs that much more powerful. Hand-writing, slangs, and abbreviations will be just the beginning of what the net will be able to read. While there is some security benefits from this endeavor, it seems to me there's actually more danger. For instance, this could easily be a first step into using inconspicuous man(mind) power unbeknown to the user to evolve the intelligence of a machine, the first legitimate venture of using the masses for the betterment of artificial intelligence (AI).

Then we build robots. The robots become self-aware. The robots think they're better than us. The robots destroy most of us. We run away. The robots chase us. Oh wait, that sounds awesome. Never mind. Bring on the AI revolution!

Labels: AI, Internet, OCR, spam, technology

Decided to do some massive MapQuesting before I head out to Seattle this Tuesday. Since I'm far from my iTunes, I thought perhaps I would check out whatever became of Pandora.com. Lo and behold, it's received a massive face lift! She's hot, really hot.

If you're not familiar with the site, I HIGHLY suggest you give it a spin. It was started by a Stanford graduate as part of a technological venture called the Music Genome Project.

"The Music Genome Project, created in January 2000, is an effort founded by Tim Westergren, a 1988 graduate from Stanford University and spearheaded by a group of musicians and technicians to 'capture the essence of music at the fundamental level' by using over 400 attributes to describe songs." (from wiki)

One of the results of the research project was pandora.com. It's a site that houses thousands of songs that users can rate according to the 400 attributes created by the research effort. What's the result? A custom radio station specially tailored to your tastes. On top of that, it is, hands down, the perfect way to find new music that caters to your favorite genre styles.

I recall its original launch. The site was fairly rudimentary and had poor music selection. In addition the recommendations were completely off the wall. Thanks to a few with perseverance and love for the program, the site started to roll. Now it has a great selection, and, typically, its recommendations are perfectly tuned to what the user's hoping to hear.

There was a short while, however, that it seemed like the site would go the same way as epitonic.com (another music database site). Lack of funding and poor marketing seemed to me, at least, to be forcing the site under, as I hadn't seen any changes to the site for well over a year. Happy to say, however, upon my most recent visit today, it would seem the site's alive and well. The redesigned the package bumper to bumper, with a brand new interface that works brilliantly with the system.

The bittersweet side, however, is that the site does feature quite a few ads. Ultimately I think this is a good thing. The site is so dynamic and intuitive, I want every effort to be made to keep it around. In that same vein of efforts, they now have hardware (radios and portable devices) that can play your custom stations. Overall, I think pandora's in for a bright future.

Sorry, iTunes, but I'm going to be spending a bit more time with someone else.

Labels: music, online application, pandora, technology, web, web2.0

5 minutes after the season finale, and I'm already blogging. I've become one of the "others." Over-zealous,over-opinionated, and over-blogging. Nonetheless. Here's my take:

Initial kudos to the writers for the exceptional back story. I first anticipated the rouse when I noticed he was using a modern cell phone. I brushed it off as a production oops, but I should have known better. Deep down I want this to mean that the writers will break their season 1-3 flashback writing formulas as they approach the 4th. Unfortunately, I had similar wishes at the end of season 2.

If you recall, the end and cliffhanger was a scene that took place outside the island at that arctic base. I hoped it would mean season 3 would actually explore the A-story narrative outside of the island. Or at least give us a few peeks here and there. Unfortunately, however, they not once went outside the island with the A-story, not even in the finale (it was a flash-forward and still very much a B-story).

Where am I going with all this? I highly doubt they'll do more flash-forward narratives, if they couldn't even grow a pair to explore the A-story outside of the island. But, we'll see.

Must keep expectations low...must keep expectations low...mustn't be disappointed again...

Ahh...okay. Back to Naomi.

Admittedly, I was duped into believing she was working for Penny when she first appeared. In fact, I was so sure, I wrote a fan-fic describing the scene. When she explained that flight 815 had been found along with bodies in a later episode, however, I realized she was probably full of ... I then surmised she was working with Mikhail, since he came to the call of the flair so quickly and understood her many languages, particularly when she said "I am not alone" in Portuguese. It was then I made the Hanso connection in particular relationship to some key facts presented in the Online Experience. I think, now, after the finale, those connections ring true, but not quite in the way I imagined.

Here's my take: Naomi works for Hanso. She was very much aboard the large freighter commissioned by the organization to find, again, the island. This was made factual by the online experience. Here's the lowdown on that in a nutshell.

FACTS:
Alvar Hanso and the Degroots (the hippie couple) start the Dharma Initiative in an attempt to use the island and research to change core values in the Valenzetti equation, thus preventing the end of the world. Outside of the island, something very bad happens to the organization. The administration is taken over by a few elite and very shady characters. Alvar Hanso is placed under house arrest, and it's left to Alvar's daughter to investigate his disappearance and find the truth. What she finds is that the new leader of the foundation is on a rather passionate quest to locate the island that, in his own words, they have lost communication with. A large freighter is put together and fitted with some very special customizations that can't be explained. From the blue prints they look like very peculiar storage areas. It's left to the ship to find the island in hopes of reigniting the Dharma Initiative once again, but this time without the direction and perhaps accountability of its founders.

THEORY:
The ship is actually fitted not only with special cargo holds, but also an ice breaking hull. Naomi flew off the ship into the direction they hypothesized the island might be. Essentially she was telling the truth when she said she was doing a grid search. I wager, however, that it was perhaps over ice and not ocean. If you remember the look on Penny's face when Charlie tells her they're on an island. Her surprise suggests that that idea seems a shock, even though she already knows the relative location of the island based on the information presented at the very end of season 2. And yes, I still can't get Walt/Hugo's comic book out of my mind. I'm holding on to the arctic theory till it blows up in my face.

Regardless, however, the "bad guys" are indeed coming. Ben's right. It was this that threw me off. My best guess is that as Dharma was being poisoned by bad leadership, some information about the foul intent came through the pipeline forcing the "hostiles" to take drastic actions to cut off the initiative from the outside world and place the island again into obscurity. Ben is believed to be a messiah-type figure to the "hostiles" because he can communicate with Jacob (no theories on this yet), but in reality, Ben is more a survivor, a selfish one at that (thus the reason why he shot Locke). For whatever reason, however, the foul intent of this rogue group that's taken over Hanso is so intense that it transcends Ben's selfish endeavors.

This group probably endeavors to "fix a mistake" and create a cover-up. That's why Ben fears they'll kill everyone on the island. I also think the strange cargo holders might exist to transport some very unique equipment off the island. This is where I think time travel might enter the equation. A friend shared an interesting blog link to a time-travel theory associated with the show. Check out my blog entry about the subject. I thought it interesting, but not worth taking to seriously, since it was kind of shaky in its evidence. Watching the Lost: Answers clip show last week, however, seriously changed my mind. The producers are dispelling the notions that they would follow a purgatory, heaven, or hell storyline. Damon Lindelof says something of particular interest. "Everyone on the island is very much alive and exists somewhere in our space time continuum." (paraphrased) Why would he bring up the space time continuum? Anyway, I won't dive into the theory. Check out my other entry to get the full scoop.

In a last look, I can say this much. The writers have definitely created a final catalyst to both wrap up the story and develop a very new plot crisis that can permit some very creative narrative efforts. Couple that with the fact they placed a dead end on the show (3 more seasons), and we're left with a recipe for a grand conclusion. (Remember your mantra Matt) I will not get my hopes up, but I will give the premier a shot, come January. If the writers move forward with gutsy and progressive writing. If they break past formulas, and find a proper balance again with plot progression and compelling character development, we might just have a winning show again. Only time will tell, however. Let's make sure we don't press the execute key and begin the cycle again.

Labels: entertainment, Lost, Naomi, tv, writing