Comcast Shennanigans

The Electronic Freedom Foundation has reported the results of their testing of problems experienced with Comcast's internet service particularly by users of P2P/BitTorrent software. The summary of the report is here. I found the story on WhatReallyHappened.com

This has gotten me thinking about some of the e-mails I haven't received that were related to BitTorrent services. Also, I wonder if this explains why my profile picture never shows up. Of course if blogger simply let you upload a picture into your profile instead of pointing to a URL it would really be a non-issue. But maybe I am missing something.

Cute Kids!

A good podcast

Here's one that didn't make it into my feed because the feed link is broken. It is the Phoenixfire podcast of John Anthony West. If you are not familiar with him he is the "rogue egyptologist" driving the effort to explain the water weathering on the Sphinx and the Sphinx enclosure in Egypt. His first six podcasts covered the history of his work in this regard as well as the response from the scientific and Egyptological community. I find his theories interesting and he is fun to listen to besides.

His latest podcast is "Atlantis here, Atlantis there, Atlantis Damn Near Everywhere!".

Enjoy!

Fun with RSS!

In case you didn't notice I got my news feed working again. For some reason the site that was hosting the feed for me deleted it (?) I went back and signed up again after getting no response to an e-mail requesting support. After I set it back up it worked like gangbusters. The site I use to generate my consolidated news feed is WebRSS. It is a bit klugey and the support seems non-existent but it served its purpose.

The reason I went looking for it in the first place was because of the (are you listening Google?) crappy RSS module in Blogger. The main problem is that it only allows you to display the top 5 items from the feed. That's OK if it is just a single feed with just a few items daily but I was trying to feed the contents of my Google Reader Shared Items into a module. The Blogger module was just not going to do the trick. I looked around on the internet for a way to generate some javascript to display more of the feed, because Blogger does let you plug in JS modules from third parties. I found several that worked, but only partially. WebRSS was the only one that worked for me fully at the time. I will keep an eye on it because I don't trust it completely.

The good news is I found another site that will probably do just as well. I found it while I was trying to figure out how to do a consolidated feed of the podcasts I like. The problem I had was that Google reader was allowing me to consolidate my news into a single feed based on the items I selected to share, which (are you listening Google?) is an AWESOME feature of Google Reader. I found the FeedDigest site which is just what the Doctor ordered. It allows you (after a free sign up) to consolidate multiple feeds into one and will also generate the Javascript (or other methods) needed to embed the consolidated feed into your blog or web page. The only thing that the Google Reader feed has over it is that with Reader you can control your feed manually. With the Podcasts it's not a big deal since there are so much fewer of them.

So as you can see, I love RSS! If you aren't all that familiar with RSS you really should take a look at it. Most sites have RSS feeds nowadays and when you get them all consolidated in a reader like Google's you can check out a lot of your favorite blogs and news sites without as much time spent surfing around. I know there are other online readers besides Google's as well as stand alone (downloadable) RSS readers. I have personally used the Snarfer reader, and although it had some bugs it was generally OK -- and free. I was forced by circumstances beyond my control to migrate to an online reader and picked Google because I already had the blog here. The features of Reader have been a pleasant surprise and have inspired me to inflict this RSS madness (look to the right) on everyone who comes into contact with the Bloggy here.

FEED ME!

Some light holiday music

The good folks at the HP Lovecraft Historical Society have released their second album of soul shattering holiday favorites entitled "An Even Scarier Solstice". Just remember, when you listen to the void the void also listens to you!

Here is a sample:

BLUE SOLSTICE . . .


* * * * * * * * ** * * * * ** *

I was also thinking about good HP Lovecraft style horror movies. There aren't too many of them, but when I really thought about it there were more than I at first realized. Granted none of these movies is "authentic" HP Lovecraft but all of them seem to be heavily inspired by his work.

The Mist -- the Stephen King story turned into a movie just recently

Hellboy -- not strictly a horror movie but the horror elements are definitely Lovecraftian. I liked this movie as much for its humor. The dialogue between Hellboy and the kid on the roof is great. It also has this great one liner: after Hellboy slays a demon from hell (by electrocuting him) he says "I'm fireproof, you're not"

In the Mouth of Madness -- a book that drives people insane

Event Horizon -- a spaceship and its crew are sent to recover a ship, the Event Horizon, lost at the edge of space for years. The ship was a prototype with a special warp drive that would open a hole in space. If you know Lovecraft you know this is something you don't want to be doing. Sam Neill who was the lead for In the Mouth of Madness also plays in this one.


Also IMDB has a tag for HP Lovecraft , not sure how accurate the ratings are but some of them look interesting.

Damanhur -- Eighth wonder of the World

My dad forwarded me this story about a temple created by a group of dedicated and creative volunteers. The whole work is straight out of the visions of one man. It looks amazing and awe inspiring and is definitely on my list of places to vist should I ever make it to Europe. Here is a sampling stolen from the article above:

See dad, non-Catholics can accomplish great things! :>)

The Mist

My wife and I went to see The Mist over the holiday. I have to say that it was a really good horror movie. There was a definite tension throughout the film as the characters lives were threatened and the bonds of "civilization" were pushed to the breaking point. There was an underlying message that when put in a situation of great fear people will do or believe almost anything to relieve themselves of the responsibility for feeling it. If they feel powerless they will attempt to reassert their power in whatever way they can. Scapegoating provides a convenient outlet for this. The terrible unknown is reduced to something familiar and identifiable.

Overall I really enjoyed this movie. Nowadays a well done horror movie seems to be a rarity. I did have a couple of problems with it. The first complaint I have was the quality of the computer generated graphics. At points they were not that great and took me out of the movie a little bit, at other points they were fine. I couldn't help but thinking they might have done better relying a bit more on animatronics and other low tech for the creatures instead of so much CG.

The bigger complaint I have is with the ending.

BIG SPOILER ALERT!!!!!

Why did they decide to kill themselves after being out of gas for 5 seconds! I mean come on! They worked so hard to survive up to that point, any normal human being is going to hold out as long as they can. I imagined myself in that situation and could easily imagine surviving for several days, and yet they decided to end it after what, maybe, 5 minutes! No, you hold out until you are either eyeing each others ribs hungrily or the monsters are about to break in.

I don't have a problem with the movie ending this way, in fact I liked it, but the context in which it happened kind of soured it for me.

* * * * * * * *

One part I liked was the beginning when you see the main character, an artist, working on the movie posters that are his livelihood. In the background is the movie poster for John Carpenter's "The Thing", a favorite movie of mine in both its version. The poster he is working on as the movie opens is obviously for Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" series. HMMM . . .. perhaps a hint of things to come?

The Plan

I grew up in a large family as the middle child. Although I was the middle child I was always lumped in with my younger siblings as one of what my parents called, "the little guys." I remember how unfair this felt even at a very young age. I was about five years old when "The Plan" was first hatched.

My parents went out for the night and left all the kids at home with a babysitter. The babysitter seemed perfectly normal despite having agreed to watch seven unruly children for a whole night. We were all watching television and it was almost bedtime. Or rather, it was almost bedtime for the "little guys". The baby sitter started rounding up my two younger brothers and me. I must not have been very happy about the situation because the babysitter wanted to make a deal. My five year old mind found her deal extremely appealing. The gist of this "Plan" was that I would pretend to go to bed with my brothers as normal, but as soon as they were asleep I would sneak out of bed. Then I could come back and watch television with the "big guys" (my sister was included in this) and the babysitter. Well it worked out marvelously for me and the babysitter. I marched to my room dutifully with the other "little guys", although inside I knew that I was no longer one of them. I fought off the thick gooey sleep that was trying to pin me down and slowly, oh so slowly, slipped out of the queen sized bed I shared with my two brothers. Every squeak sounded like a gunshot as I tried to get out without waking them. I finally succeeded and went back to the living room. I remember how bright the lights were when I came back out. I had a great feeling of freedom right alongside the persistent, hypnotic call of sleep.I sat on the floor in her lap and despite a valiant struggle I fell back to sleep. The babysitter had won and got me to sleep with very little fuss. Little did she know that she had planted a seed in me that would grow and mutate.

It was a couple of years later that The Plan would rise again. The situations were very similar to before. The "little guys" had to go to bed early, even on the weekends. This left the big kids awake to watch scary movies and drink all of the soda pop and eat the treats. I felt outraged by the unfairness of the situation. It was in this outrage that I remembered The Plan. Only this time I felt that I needed to bring the freedom of The Plan to others. I explained The Plan to my two younger brothers and from then on it was a standing order. Despite this fact we would always confirm with each other that The Plan was on:"Are we doing The Plan tonight?""Yeah, The Plan tonight."In most cases we would be unable to stay awake and The Plan would be lost to sleep and dream. With The Plan there was strength in numbers. If one of us managed to stay awake we made a solemn promise to the others to wake them up too. There were times, glorious times, when The Plan was executed to perfection. I remember feasting on chips and Coca-Cola while watching late night sci-fi and horror movies.Now that I'm older I find it interesting that I still do The Plan. I don't call it that any more but the pattern is the same. I wait until everyone else is asleep and then treat myself to whatever goodies are in the house. I watch all of the movies and television that my kids can't (or my wife won't) watch. It still has the sweet taste of a secret shared among a precious few.

To this day when I get together with my brother we always end up talking about The Plan. We remember it fondly. We also remember our co-conspirator, our brother, who died too young. Now I am thinking that maybe, somewhere or somewhen, he is doing his own cosmic version of The Plan. I hope he remembers to wake up his brother so that we can enjoy the goodies together.

Drowning or How I Learned to Swim

Growing up I was a timid child. It may have had something to do with having a lot of older brothers. I remember that for a couple of years we lived in a subdivision close to a lake. In the summer we would often go swimming at the public beach there. I was probably 8 years old and didn't yet know how to swim. It was a bit humiliating because even my younger brothers were already playing in the deep water off the end of the dock. I remember watching them play as I played by myself, jumping off the dock again and again into the water where I knew I could touch the bottom.

In the end I had to confront my fear of the deep water, but not by choice. I jumped into the water again for probably the thousandth time. I fully intended to jump into the shallow water, but somehow I misjudged and ended up in water that was above my head. I began to panic because I didn't know how to swim. I came up for air and tried to call for help . .. once, twice, three times. Each time I swallowed more water. I soon realized that no one could see or hear me and that I was about to drown.

I went under again and inside me a commanding voice said "SWIM!". I immediately began to swim under the water and didn't stop until I was laying on my back on the beach.

When you have kids . . .

weird things happen sometimes.

Picture this: you're alone in the house at night. Everyone else is fast asleep. You are dilligently doing whatever it is you're doing. It is calm and relaxed. Then, out of nowhere, you hear something like this:

"Tickle Elmo again!"

The funny thing is that it's not coming from your kid's rooms or from the baby monitor, it is coming from the toybox. For no apparent reason your child's toys have decided to start speaking to you. Elmo wants to be tickled!

Of course you can rationalize it away: the toys were just settling or there's a storm outside or the butterfly effect from a quantum state change bubbled up a level like a meal at White Castle.

But you are never really sure. Usually they don't keep talking . .. usually!

MWAHAHAHA!

Who am I?

When I was much younger, maybe 12 or 13 years old I got very, very sick with mononucleosis. Unfortunately I did not even get it from a girl. My glands swelled up so bad it was really painful even to swallow. As a consequence I became severely dehydrated. At the same time I was feverish and sick to my stomach. I remember sleeping for long stretches and waking up completely disoriented, hardly remembering where I was or how long I had been sleeping.

Once I woke up from just such a period of "rest" and dragged myself into the bathroom. When I looked in the mirror I had one of the strangest feelings I have ever experienced. I saw my reflection and did not recognize it as me. I know I must have looked terrible by that point but this was something completely different. The reflection in the mirror was not me! The feeling was so unusual that I remember it to this day.

News Feed

Well the News Feed has been F!@$&D up for awhile now. Not sure what is going on. Double GRRR!

One of my favorite quotes

"If all fools were to be whipped, then who shouldst 'scape whipping?"

The Fool to King Lear

Joss Whedon returns to TV!

Yes, you read it right. The creator of Buff, Angel, and Firefly is returning with a new TV series. You can read all about it here.

I have to admit that I was not a fan of Buffy or Angel. The writing was fun but the "camp" factor was a bit too much for me. Of course compared to all of the other stuff on TV . .. I digress.

I really enjoyed the movie Serenity. It was my first exposure to his work. Later I sat down with my wife and watched the entire run of the TV series Firefly, on which Serenity is based. What can I say, the show was great! The characters had a texture and their relationships felt genuine. It also had a great sense of humor, and the Jaynestown (or is it Jaynesville?) episode is an all time classic.

I remember when it first came out on TV. At the time I thought that the "space western" thing was a bit too cheesy for my tastes. It was my loss. Firefly is a classic. Only beware, if you go out and rent it be prepared for a few days of grieving because when you are finished watching it, it's over.

Why censorship?

Like a lot of other people I wonder about this censorship. I also notice that the censorship consistently favors the current Administration by suppressing information that might be damaging to them. Why would they do this?

I think part of the answer can be found in the control that the Federal government can exert over the business of the media through the FCC. I also know that war and conflict are good for the business of big media. After all, wasn't it the first Gulf War that really put CNN on the map? Now in the era of embedded reporters it seems like the media has to kiss the ass of the politicians to get access to the "official reports" that they rely on so heavily. In essence I feel that if the big media companies don't play ball with the government, particularly the Administration, they can be squeezed from multiple angles and the viability of their business put in jeopardy.

An interesting case in this regard is the telecommunications company Qwest. Their former CEO claims that Qwest was passed over for lucrative federal contracts because they would not play ball on warrantless wiretapping