wildyams

Man, I haven't seen this much controversy for a film since The Passion of the Christ. In case you hadn't heard, Michael Moore's new film Farenheit 9/11 has done huge business since it was opened a little over two weeks ago, destroying all records for box office for documentaries (surpassing Moore's last film, Bowling for Columbine, the previous record-holder). Much like The Passion, Farenheit 9/11 has done so well at the box office because of the controversy surrounding the film. Ironically, the two films are backed by groups of people that are almost complete opposites politically.

I'm torn on how I feel about Michael Moore. On one hand, he makes a lot of good points in his movies (the ones I've seen, anyway). On the other hand, he's frequently prone to sensationalism instead of honesty. He's very effective at making his points, but unfortunately he often makes his points by lying or telling half-truths. As a result my inclination with his stuff is to watch it (because at the very least it is entertaining), but I feel I have to investigate how much of what he is saying is true. Anyway, I've been doing a lot of research into all the controversy surrounding Farenheit 9/11, and I've come up with a bunch of links for people to check out if you're interested. Like anything controversial, these links are pretty vehement about their complaints, so be warned.

- Michael Moore's weblog

- NY Times piece on how thoroughly Moore has made sure all the facts in the movie are true.

- Michael Moore's threat to sue anyone for libel if they attack the integrity of the film

- Rotten Tomatoes' page with 83% positive reviews

- Supposed deceits in Farenheit 9/11

- Piece claiming the film relies heavily on circumstantial evidence

- Ralph Nader calling Michael Moore a sellout for abandoning the Green Party in favor of the Democrats

- A really scathing review which points out many supposed contradictions and connundrums in the movie

I'd like to close with something from Roger Ebert's review of Farenheit 9/11, because when I read it, it echoed almost exactly how I feel about Moore as a documentarian:

The pitfall for Moore is not subjectivity, but accuracy. We expect him to hold an opinion and argue it, but we also require his facts to be correct. I was an admirer of his previous doc, the Oscar-winning "Bowling for Columbine," until I discovered that some of his "facts" were wrong, false or fudged.

In some cases, he was guilty of making a good story better, but in other cases (such as his ambush of Charlton Heston) he was unfair, and in still others (such as the wording on the plaque under the bomber at the Air Force Academy) he was just plain wrong, as anyone can see by going to look at the plaque.

Because I agree with Moore's politics, his inaccuracies pained me, and I wrote about them in my Answer Man column. Moore wrote me that he didn't expect such attacks "from you, of all people." But I cannot ignore flaws simply because I agree with the filmmaker. In hurting his cause, he wounds mine.

So the last two days have been rather interesting here at work. Nothing like walking in first thing to start off the week (I had Monday off) to see this on your computer: “boot disk fail, insert boot disk and press any key." My first thought was that maybe there was a CD or floppy in the computer, but nope, there wasn't, so I hit a key thinking maybe there had been and now was not. That didn't do anything so I powered my computer off and powered it back on and it seemed to be doing ok for a couple minutes; however, it then began to make weird noises periodically. My office-mate Paola aptly described these noises coming from inside my computer as though my computer was drinking liquid through a straw and was down to the dregs at the bottom of the glass. At first I was hoping it was maybe a bad floppy drive, but when my computer just switched off and displayed the "boot disk fail" message again, I knew my hard drive was dead. I did manage to get it up and running again just long enough to transfer my email archive to the server, and then my hard drive died for good.

So now I've got a new hard drive in my computer (I was without my PC for most of the day yesterday), and I have now had to re-set up my computer to get it back to the way I had it before. Also, I lost a bunch of my non-essential files (like mp3s that I listen to at work, but have backed up at home). Oh well, at least I'm not super busy, otherwise something like this would really be a nuisance.

Here's a great webpage on how to eat for free all the time. Sound too good to be true? Check out the completely innovative methods they have for acquiring food for free. Here's a sample:

Dumpster Driving! - The best, easiest way to to get the most food. Just head to your local grocery store, produce store, bagel and donut shop, bakery, K-mart (expired shelf goodies), and open up the dumpster and take a look. Don't be afraid to climb in and dig around! have fun, go with your friends!

Looks like I know what I'm doing for dinner tonight :lol

Go Freegan!

I haven't been blogging a lot lately, and that's in large part due to the fact that I've been housesitting for my Dad for the last 2 and a half weeks; and while I love being over at his house, I find that doing any extensive typing on a laptop is rather irritating (at least on a laptop like his that has that small laptop keyboard). Maybe next time I go over there I'll take a USB keyboard with me, even though that would probably make me a pretty big loser :lol

Anyway, I've been doing a good job budgeting my money as of late, and have been setting money aside, and with the money I've got left over I am thinking of buying a couple things. First, the speakers in my car are dying, and they're dying pretty fast. My right front speaker is totally blown, and it sucks trying to listen to music on a blown speaker. The speaker didn't blow from any suddenly loud music, but rather because I have a fairly powerful amp in my car and stock speakers; and as anyone who knows much about electronics and audio will tell you, over a long period of time having an amp and speakers that are badly mismatched in the amount of output they can produce will eventually blow out the speakers (even if it is the amp that is badly underpowering them).

So I'm looking at all new speakers for my car, and I am also looking at getting a new head unit, even though my current head unit is still pretty good and is functioning ok. My head unit (that's the CD player, FYI) does definitely need to have the laser re-aligned and cleaned, because my head unit has trouble sometimes reading burned CDs, and that is a classic sign of a CD player in need of a "tune up," and since it's probably been close to 3 years since I had my head unit in for servicing, it is long overdue. While I could just get it cleaned, that would no doubt run me between $50 and $100, and I would be without my CD player for a month or so. As a result, I figure this would be a good opportunity to buy a new head unit that will also play mp3s off a burned CD, seeing as my entire music collection is now in mp3 form, and it would be nice to just carry around a few mp3 CDs instead of all the discs I currently keep in my car.

In addition to upgrading my car's audio, I am also going to buy myself a new Mac, since my current beige G3 Mac at home is beginning to have a few problems (as I noted earlier). Plus, there are a lot of cool things I would like to do on a Mac, which I really am limited from doing on my current one. The main thing I would love to do is do some sound editing (a/k/a make some mix CDs :lol). On my current system the processor just can not handle large audio files very well, and so doing anything with sound is very difficult. I also would love to be able to capture audio and images from movies, and I do not have a DVD drive in either of my current computers, so I am unable to do that. Plus, with my mp3 collection growing towards the limit of the hard drive that I have, I would love to get a new hard drive (or hard drives) simply so I can back up all those songs and not have to worry about my entire music collection going down the toilet. Having had my hard drive here at work crap out on me makes me feel like I should probably do this as soon as possible. So anyway, I will probably be buying myself a new Mac in the next couple weeks as soon as I decide which one I want. So between the new Mac and some new car audio, looks like I'm gonna soon have myself some new toys to play with :grin

If anyone has seen Elton, let him know his wife and kids are looking for him.

Confused? So was I. I got back to my apartment last night after spending the last two and a half weeks at my Dad's place, and one of the first things I did was check my answering machine. Now normally if I spend time at my Dad's place, I'll get a few messages from people who either don't know my Dad's number or who don't know I'm over there, and I might get a telemarketing message or two but that's about it. So imagine my surprise when I saw I had 24 messages when I got home. My first thought was that something was very badly wrong, like there had been some kind of emergency or something. Fortunately that wasn't what had happened, and instead something else had happened.

It turns out that I've got a stalker.

The only thing is, she's not stalking me :lol

See, my answering machine message is extremely short. It is just me saying "Hey it's my answering machine" and then the beep goes off. I figure most people know what to do with an answering machine without me telling them to leave a message after the beep, so that's all my message is. Anyway, evidently some woman (she never left her name in all the myriad of phone calls) was trying to reach her estranged husband Elton, and mistakenly thought my number was his. Unfortunately for her, Elton's cell phone wasn't working, so the only way she thought she could get in touch with him was by calling my number. Naturally I wasn't there to tell her she had a wrong number, so she decided to leave him a few messages. About 19 of them to be precise, and she would have no doubt left more except that she rapidly filled up my answering machine and she was cut off mid-way through her final message once she had exhausted my machine's storage capacity.

I recorded about 5 or 6 of her messages and put them together in a wav file for you to listen to, if you're at all interested. The wav file is 4.5 megs and is 5 minutes long, but the first message is definitely the best (she believed that Elton was messing around on her with some other woman, and was on a drug binge and had left she and the kids to fend for themselves). In the second message she breaks down crying (and I know I'm going to hell for finding entertainment value in that, but I justify it to myself that maybe it's just a misunderstanding because she has the wrong number, and Elton is actually not doing what she's accusing him of :lol); but then most of the rest of her messages were her basically saying "Elton, I know you're there, just pick up the phone. Elton? Why are you being this way?" She must have left at least 10 messages in a row like that, so I cut it off after a few of those. So without further ado, here is the one-sided drama which took place on my answering machine over the last week or so. Enjoy:

elton.wav

Call me insane (it's probably accurate), but I said fuck it and just went ahead and got myself a new Mac G5. I did get the low end one, however, so I'm not totally nuts. I now should not have to buy another Mac for at least 5 years I'm guessing, considering I'm coming to the end of my current Mac's life, and it must be close to 7 years old by now (maybe more). That will hopefully be here in the next two weeks or so. I also ordered a gig of RAM separately (since Apple overcharges), and that will be here also hopefully within 2 weeks or so. As it is, I ordered a dual 1.8 GHz G5 processor with 1.25 gigs of RAM total and an 80 Gig HD. Since I already have an 80 Gig HD, I will basically use the new HD to just back up all my music. Then when I run out of room I'll get a new HD to add to it all. I also got an ATI Radeon 9600 XT w/ 128 megs of video RAM and an 8x SuperDrive, so I really should have a pretty kick ass system. I can't wait to get it up and running :grin

Also, I talked to Jon today and hopefully he's gonna help me out by getting me my new car speakers and head unit. He's super busy though, so I'm not sure when I'll know about that, but considering the deal he'll no doubt be able to swing, I'm sure it will be more than worth it. Thanks Jon! Also, thanks to Dave and Steven for helping me pick out good stuff for my new Mac, it was much appreciated :grin

"The Combo" is officially over. No more Shaq, but at least Kobe is still here. Yesterday the Lakers officially traded Shaquille O'Neal to the Miami Heat in exchange for Lamar Odom, Brian Grant, Caron Butler and a 2006 1st round draft pick. Today it is being reported that Kobe will re-sign with the Lakers for a 7 year deal worth $136 million, so LA kept one of its superstars, but lost the other one. I want to say that while I had hoped the Lakers would get more for Shaq, I am glad they traded him. The Lakers had become very irritating with both Kobe and Shaq bickering every year, and I would have preferred that they keep Kobe if they had to get rid of one of the two. The reasons why I prefer Kobe are simple: Kobe is seven years younger than Shaq, Kobe makes less (meaning he's not as rough on the Lakers' salary cap), Kobe works hard (Shaq is notoriously lazy), and the style of basketball Kobe wants to play is more exciting to watch. True, the brand of basketball Shaq prefers has been more effective, but since the Lakers haven't won the last two years with Shaq as the team's focal point, I am glad to see the Lakers get rid of him now while he still has a lot of trade value (he'll become less and less attractive to other teams as he gets older and more expensive).

I want to also be clear that with the current Laker roster I do not consider them a legit championship contender next year, or for the year after that. However, if the Lakers make some more deals to bring in some additional great players, then that could change; but realistically I think the next time the Lakers will be legit contenders is 2 or 3 years from now. The Lakers are now officially a young team, after being a very old one for the last few years. They have a good core to build around with Kobe and Odom, and hopefully will provide us Laker fans with some entertaining ball for the next year or two or three as they position themselves well in the drafts and in the free agent market. The Lakers are in rebuilding mode, make no mistake, but I think they have a very bright future now.

I'd like to welcome the newest additions to the Los Angeles Lakers, announced today at a press conference here in LA:

(From left: Lamar Odom, Caron Butler & Brian Grant)

Lamar Odom was the main piece in this trade for Shaq, as he is a 6'10" forward who is 24 years old, extremely athletic and extremely versatile. He'll be a great addition to the team and it will be exciting to see him pair with Kobe Bryant. Caron Butler showed a lot of promise a year ago as a rookie, and came close to being the rookie of the year, but he had injury problems this season and wasn't able to expand on that early promise. He did have a very good playoffs this year though, and is still considered a great prospect for the future. Brian Grant is a very hardworking (if undersized) big man, who will bring hustle, defense and rebounds to the Lakers. I've wanted him on this team for about 5 years now, although he is much more effective when paired with a center as opposed to playing as one, so it is crucial the Lakers pick up someone to man the middle along with Grant, otherwise it could get ugly.

As I've said, Laker fans should get ready for some mediocre seasons the next couple years (especially compared to what we've had here for the last 5+ years or so), but in 2006 or 2007 LA should be really well positioned to make another prolonged run at some championships; so the long-term future is still bright, even if the present is a little murky.

My Dad took me to see the Angels play the Red Sox tonight at Angels Stadium, and it was my first baseball game as a fan since I was probably 13 or 14 or so. It was the first time I'd seen the Red Sox play in person since I was about maybe 5 or so. Naturally my last baseball game was in 1997, but I was working as a vendor for that one at Dodger Stadium, as I had for about the previous seven years. Tonight was a fun time, in spite of the fact that the Red Sox got absolutely hammered by the Angels 8-3.

A rather remarkable thing happened at the game tonight though. In the 5th inning, with the Red Sox losing 5-0, Johnny Damon (Boston's lead-off hitter) hit a home run almost EXACTLY to where I was sitting. It was a line-drive home run, so the ball was really moving when it got to us. It was going so fast that for a split second I thought "I can reach out and catch it" before immediately thinking "if I do I will break my hand" so instead I put my hands up to my face to make sure it didn't bounce off someone and into me. My Dad was sitting right next to me and he would have been hit in the face with the ball if the woman next to him hadn't reached out with her glove to try to catch it (my Dad didn't have a glove either). The woman, who was a fellow Sox fan, got her glove on the ball, but it bounced off the glove and went under the seats in the row behind us, where a young boy picked it up (should make a nice souvenir for the kid). What was odd was that the woman who almost caught the ball told us (and the guy she was with verified this) that before the game she said she was gonna bring her glove because she wanted to catch a Johnny Damon home run, because Damon is her favorite player. She was so upset about almost having this exact thing come true that she got up after the play and we didn't see her again for the next inning. She was a cool lady though, but you could tell she was bummed she missed her shot.

Anyway, what was almost as weird was the next time Johnny Damon came up to bat, she made sure to get her glove ready, and sure enough, Damon hit another home run, once again almost right at us. This time it ended up going about maybe 20 seats away from us, and maybe 4 rows back (although this distance technically put it in the bullpen, but it was the equivalent distance from us). 2 batters after Damon hit that second homer, David Ortiz hit the Red Sox's 3rd homer of the game, but that only put the Sox behind 8-3 in the bottom of the 8th inning, and that was where it stayed. What's really cool is that I looked online and they have a video clip of Johnny Damon's two home runs, and you can actually see me in it. If you look at this clip at about the 15 second mark, when the ball goes into the crowd you can see me in the light blue shirt with the bald head turning around to look down to see where the ball went. Pretty cool, huh?

Yesterday was a good day. Steve-o and Juliet dropped by, since Steve-o has now moved back down here to LA after 3 years (or thereabouts) of living in Big Bear. Anyway, Steve-o and Juliet dropped by and we went to Frys so that Steve-o could look for an ATA card to run his 80 gig hard drive on his Mac G3 (his is blue and white, however, so unlike my beige G3, his will run Panther), and so I could check out hard drives. I didn't buy anything, because I don't really need a new hard drive yet, although I probably will within the next year. I thought about buying one online (I could get a 200 gig serial ATA, which I'd need for a G5, for about $125 delivered), but I figured I'd wait till I was actually almost out of HD space first. Anyway, while at Frys I went over and looked at the G5s they had on display, and I got all anxious waiting for mine to arrive. Apple's website tells me it should ship on or before next Thursday, the 29th, and I got standard shipping so it should arrive 7-10 days after that, so I won't have it for another 3-4 weeks or so.

After Frys we went over to Glendale to pick Edrich up and then went to Burbank to get dinner at P.F. Changs. We spent most of the meal talking about how we should have gone to Yang Chow instead, but it was a good time nonetheless. We had Coffee Bean afterwards, then went back to Edrich's house and watched Casino while Edrich made me copies of two live Joy Division albums (which I added to my music collection when I got home). Anyway, after that I went home and called it a night.

That's pretty much it, except that I have to share this website that I found, which is hugely entertaining. It's just a long collection of varied lists of things. I think my two favorite lists are probably Reported Legal Case Opinions Pertaining to or Mentioning Coleslaw ("Plaintiff was walking through a closed checkout lane in defendant's store when he slipped on the remnants of coleslaw that had spilled onto the floor.") and Possible Rhymes by Ice Cube After Being Knighted by the Queen ("Ima muthafuckin G straight out the west, you be throwin up signs, I be throwin up my crest."). Check it out, but be warned, it looks to be pretty addictive.

This is without a doubt one of the absolute funniest things I've ever seen anywhere. God bless the internet :grin

Click to view/download

Music video for Ice Ice Baby featuring dancing Star Wars characters from a video game

Thanks to BoingBoing for bringing this to my attention.

Clearly less impactful on the Lakers than what happened with Kobe and Shaq's decisions to stay or go, there were the more recent decisions of another guard and center who have played for the Lakers as well: point guard Derek Fisher and center Vlade Divac. The quick summation of what has happened with these two players is that Derek Fisher left the Lakers as a free agent to sign with the Golden State Warriors for 6 years/ $37 million (or more than twice what LA was paying him); and that Vlade Divac has left the Sacramento Queens to come play for the Lakers for one year for $4.9 million (with the Lakers holding an option on a second year for $5 million). So that is the quick summation, but there is a pretty interesting backstory with these two players, that I will regale you with now.

Ironically enough, it begins back in 1989, after the last time the Lakers were beaten soundly in the Finals by the Detroit Pistons. After LA was swept out of the 1989 Finals, legendary Laker center Kareem Abdul-Jabar retired, leaving LA without a hall of fame center for the first time in years. As a result, then Laker general mangager Jerry West turned to an unknown young center from Yugoslavia named Vlade Divac with the 26th pick in the first round of the 89 NBA Draft. Vlade turned out to be a much better center than people predicted, and eventually went on to be one of the most reliable, and best centers in the league.

However, in the summer of 1996 Vlade was traded away from the Lakers to the Charlotte Hornets for their new young draft pick, a player named Kobe Bryant. LA traded away their promising center because they were in the hunt for Shaquille O'Neal and figured they wouldn't need another center, and instead invested in the future. Clearly it turned out to be the right move, as Kobe is one of the best players in the game, even at only 25 years of age. In that same 1996 draft the Lakers used their own first round pick to acquire Derek Fisher, another rather unheralded player, and part of the Laker core that would win 3 consecutive championships was set (Horry came midway through Shaq and Kobe's first season with the Lakers and Fox was acquired the following summer).

But here we are now, 8 years after the summer of 1996 and 15 years after the summer of 1989, and that Laker championship core has been broken apart, due in large part to being eliminated in embarrassing fashion by the Detroit Pistons. Fisher is now gone, as is the Lakers' most recent Hall of Fame center, Shaquille O'Neal; so I find it ironic that once again, the Lakers have turned to Vlade Divac to step in and fill the void. Maybe considering Vlade was the last starting center the Lakers had before Shaq, you could say Shaq was just keeping Vlade's spot warm for him :lol

Friday night after work I went over to Dave and Jen's place to get dinner. Since it was their 3rd wedding anniversary on Wednesday, I treated them to dinner at Hamburger Hamlet, where we all got the baby cheeseburgers and the delicious chocolate cake for desert (they both had French onion soup as well, but I did not). After dinner we went over to Dave's parents place where his parents gave them a couple nice anniversary presents. We hung out there for a while, then left so that we could go see The Bourne Supremacy, but unfortunately it was sold out. So we went back to their place for a while, and since Dave said he was getting tired, so I checked to see if there were any showtimes in Hollywood. Sure enough, there was one at 12:30 at the Arclight, so I went and saw it there (I knew I wasn't gonna go home and go to sleep anyway, so I figured why not).

I have to say, I really liked it, and I really want to see it again. It was a little different than the first movie, The Bourne Idendity, in that it had a more serious tone to it. One of the things I liked about the first one was the "fun" angle it had to it, which helped offset some of the seriousness (the car chase involving a Mini, the way that Marie got Kane's records from the hotel, etc...). That along with the romance helped kind of lighten the tension from the serious stuff that happened throughout the movie. Even some of the earlier "spy stuff" in the movie had an element of "fun" to it. As the movie got further along it got more serious up until the very very end before the credits, but the final showdown was definitely more serious in tone. The Bourne Supremacy was like that for virtually the entire movie, and even though it took a little getting used to based on my prior expectations because of the first movie, in the end I think it worked really well. A person in that character's situation would, in fact, have very little humor in his life. There was great "spy movie" stuff throughout: good gagetry, good situations where the hero gets out of a tight spot, and one of the best car chases I've ever seen (you have to love a car chase where the cars are smashing into each other repeatedly as opposed to miraculously driving through tons of traffic at high speeds with nary a scratch).

I am glad to see that The Bourne Supremacy had a huge opening weekend, outperforming I, Robot's opening weekend a week ago, and far outperforming the opening weekend by The Bourne Identity's opening weekend two years ago, when it was beaten badly by Scooby Doo. I find that ironic because, having seen Scooby Doo and knowing how truly awful a movie it was, I thought it was rather telling that when Scooby Doo 2 came out earlier this year it only did about half as well in its opening weekend, going from $54 million for part 1, to only $29 million for part 2. With the Bourne series, however, it went from making about $27 million in the opening weekend for part 1, while part two has made over $53 million in its opening weekend. I think this shows that while slick marketing can get you a big opening weekend for a movie (like Scooby Doo had), if the movie stinks you can't expect that any sequels will do very well. However, even if bad marketing hurts your opening weekend (which I think clearly happened in the case of The Bourne Identity, which was marketed like it was a kung-fu action movie starring Matt Damon instead of Chuck Noris or something), if the movie is truly good then not only will people go see it based on good word of mouth, but that people will turn out to see a sequel because they liked the first one so much. It is important to note that even though Scooby Doo 2 had a bigger opening weekend than The Courne Identity, The Bourne Identity went on to make 45% more money than Scooby Doo 2 did. One would hope that would be motivation enough for the major studios to try to make better movies in the first place, and to place emphasis on the film rather than its marketing.

Or like Matt Damon's character quoted in the movie Rounders: "Amarillo Slim, the greatest proposition gambler of all time, held to his father's maxim: You can shear a sheep many times, but skin him only once." (soundclip)

This is one of the most absurd things I've ever seen. Being friends with a guy who has had fansites up for various actors and/or shows/movies (or whatever) that he was a fan of, only to be given cease and desist letters from lawyers telling him to stop giving their show/film/client any more free positive publicity, reading something like this hits close to home:

SG1Archive.com is one of the most popular fan-run websites among the Stargate community. In addition to providing very active fan discussion forums, broadcast schedules, production news, and episode guides, the site heavily promotes the sale of the show on DVD. As of this writing, direct links from SG1Archive.com to Amazon.com have resulted in the sale of over $100,000 worth of DVDs. Many more DVDs have been sold to international fans of the show through sites like Blackstar.co.uk. Upon hearing this news, Stargate executive producer Brad Wright called the site "cool" - which Adam took as an endorsement of his work.

However, instead of thanking Adam for his promotion of their product, officials at MGM and the MPAA have chosen to pressure the FBI into pursuing criminal charges. Adam was first tipped off about the investigation when the FBI raided his and his fiancee's apartment in May of 2002 and seized thousands of dollars worth of computer equipment. Adam later received a copy of the affidavit filed in support of the search warrant, and was shocked to discover that this document, prepared by the FBI, contained significant amounts of erroneous and misleading information. For example, two social security numbers were listed for Adam, one of which is not his. References were made to a cease and desist letter sent by the MPAA to an email address that did not exist. His online friendship with other Stargate fans across the globe was portrayed as an international conspiracy against the MPAA. And perhaps most disturbing of all, it was later revealed that the FBI invoked a provision of the USA Patriot Act to obtain financial records from his ISP. The FBI's abuse of its powers did not stop there. When they seized Adam's computer equipment, he was given written documentation stating that it would be returned within 60 days. The equipment that they did return did not arrive until more than 8 months later, and only then after much prodding from his lawyer. Much of it was damaged beyond repair - one laptop had a shattered LCD screen, an empty tape backup drive was ripped apart for no apparent reason, his fiancee's iBook was badly damaged when it was pried apart with a screwdriver. The FBI's computer crimes staff is either incompetent (at least when it comes to Macintosh computer equipment) or else they just don't give a damn.

What balls the fucking entertainment industry has to fucking squander tax dollars by having the FBI do a three year investigation into a guy who has a site up that is helping promote their product! The guy is spreading the word about how much he likes their show, he is helping provide links to where people can spend money on MGM's product, and their response is to raid his house and trash his equipment. Christ, even the Nazis weren't punishing people who were helping to further their cause! What a crazy society we live in, for crying out loud! :nono

I got home from work today to see that my G5 shipped on the 24th (although they didn't notify me till about a half hour ago), and according to the tracking number they gave me, they estimated that it should have been delivered today. Since deliveries don't come directly to me, and instead go to some main mail room on the lot, maybe I'll have it tomorrow. One can always hope :grin

So my G5 did indeed arrive today, and as I found out there was some good news about it and some bad news about it. The good news is that it arrived unharmed and it works great. Both my monitors are running at 1600x1200 (something I couldn't do before with my G3), and the computer is fast as hell. I'm loving it. Now for the bad news. The bad news is that with a dual processor computer (or maybe just with G5s in general) you MUST run RAM in pairs. This would explain why Apple would only ship 256 megs of RAM in two 128 meg sticks. It also means that my 1 Gig stick of RAM that I ordered is worthless unless I have another one to go with it.

So I went ahead and ordered another one.

The good news there is that I'll now have 2.25 Gigs of RAM in my computer, ensuring I won't need any more RAM for a long, long, long time. The bad news is it cost me another $200, but luckily I'm getting a pretty fat severance this Friday, so I can afford it right now.

The other bad news is that my 80 gig HD absolutely will not fit in my new G5 because the G5 only will accept serial ATA hard drives. The other bad news is that my G5 only has 2 HD bays, so if I was gonna get one, I should get one that's big.

And that's what I did.

I ordered a 200 Gig SATA HD, which was surprisingly cheap ($115), and so when that shows up I'll have 280 Gigs of HD space, which should be more than enough for me for a long, long time. The bad news is that since I dismantled my G3, I'm not going to have any of my music online for a couple days. However, since I don't have a use for my old 80 Gig HD in my Mac, I'm gonna install it in my PC, along with my CD burner I was using before (since I have a SuperDrive in my Mac now :grin). Maybe I'll transfer all my stuff across my network to my G5 from the old HD that way, but otherwise I'm gonna have to do without my music list being online for a few days. C'est la vie I guess. It could always be worse.

I could still be using my beige G3 :wink

Yesterday was our last day at work as employees of the old company (meaning today is our first day of work as employees of the new company), and as such we had a last company meeting and then we had a farewell party last night. At the meeting they basically emptied the vaults of all the leftover old company presents and put them in these bags so that each person got a grab bag full of goodies. The only downside there is that for many of us we already had received these items in years past, and that most of the stuff was, well, not too useful. I did get another foldup chair out of it though, but the plastic coffee mug and beer glass and the cheap lantern that doesn't work are not quite as good. Whatever, free schwag, so who am I to complain, right?

After work we all went over to Ca Del Sole, which was the location of our 2002 Xmas party, and we had our farewell party (even though we're all still going to be working together under the new company, but why pass up an excuse to party? :lol). The party was a raucous affair, as always, with much alcohol consumed, many a toast, and a few broken wine glasses to boot. All in all it was a great time, with great food (Ca Del Sole really does have great food, if you're ever looking for a good place to eat), and I think everyone seemed like they had a good time. Of course today there are a few hung over individuals, but what the hell, it's Friday :grin