Friday, October 31, 2008

Friday, October 24, 2008

what's up, b?

This is brilliant.



Anyone know the story behind it?

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

i'm inanely rambling on multiple websites these days

And by that I mean that there's a new interview with me up on Tracksounds.com all about being the Music Supervisor for LucasArts' newest release, Fracture.

I think that's just about enough hypertext links for one sentence, don't you?

Monday, October 20, 2008

arming the stupid is dangerous

Okay.

This is driving me nuts. You want to be bigoted and ignorant and hate Obama because he's black? As much as I hate to say it, you have a constitutional right to say so. You want to be xenophobic and ignorant and hate Obama because his name sounds Muslim? Fine. It's an idiotic reason, but it's just as superficial a reason as saying that McCain is too old. You want to consume nothing but sound bites and hate Obama because of his tenuous links to William Ayers? I think you're wrong, but political affiliations have long been scrutinized and this is nothing new.

A big fucking "HOWEVER" goes here, though.

The Republican party has been cris-crossing the country hammering on two completely separate points.

Point 1: Obama might secretly be Muslim because his middle name is "Hussein"
Point 2: Obama might secretly be "anti-American" because of his association with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers

Two separate attacks. The Republican party is relentlessly slinging this mud from their podiums to rabid audiences that are lapping it up. But here's the problem. There's this completely irresponsible disregard for how their dangerous messages are consumed. Watch the video from Al Jazeera of the rally in Ohio that made it's way around the blogs last week and it becomes apparent that the stupid of our country can't understand the separation between the two attacks. The Republican party has now misled people into believing that Obama is an Islamic terrorist.

That's not the point McCain/Palin are trying to make, but their irresponsible, scattershot accusations are combining into dangerous lies. And no one seems to have any interest in clearing up the confusion of their message. To McCain/Palin, hatred for Obama equals votes - even if they get them by turning a US Senator into the specter of a second 9/11 in the eyes of stupid, gullible white people.

The whole thing is disgusting. Dangerous, irresponsible, dishonorable, and completely un-American.

Friday, October 17, 2008

my router-led route home

For those who don't know, whenever you access the Internet from an iPhone your iPhone checks to see if there are any available wifi connections nearby that you can access. A little window will pop up showing you the names of any and all available wifi hubs and whether or not they are free or locked and require passwords to access.

Usually, there's only one or two. Maybe 5 or so if I'm in my apartment. The other day, though, I was sitting at a long red light and fired up the Intarwebs on my phone while in downtown San Francisco. I was amazed at the sheer number of available hubs and realize that if I didn't select any of them or hit "cancel" that I'd be able to see the names of the hubs change as I drove my way through the city.

I found myself fascinated with the names that people choose for their wireless routers. By far, most people don't seem to change the default name so there are lots of things labeled "linksys" or "2WIRE." A number of others are by actual locations(like The Holiday Inn) and they take the time to rename theirs, although the on-ramp to 101 South also seems to have its own router named "On Ramp."

But then there are the rest, the ones that are just random home users who take the time to name their wifi connections with something that means something to them. These are the ones I found myself fascinated with. Lots of people seem to be unaware of the fact that anyone can see the name of their routers. Such as "susan" or Georgina Rice who named her router "georginarice." Then there are the people who name their routers after pet names like "Sweetie Pea," "muffin," "this little piggy," or "stinky." There are also the people like "Team Awesome," "boner," "giggidy," and "FratNetPullsHellaTail" who seem to want people to see the names of their routers.

By far, though, my favorite I've seen so far is the one near the Presidio labeled "this has a virus." I can't decide if it is merely an attempt to dissuade people from mooching off of their wifi or if they have multiple routers and gave them different names while trying to do some kind of troubleshooting. Either way, that name rocks.

If someone wanted to, they could use their iPhone to drive around San Francisco and create a map of the city's wifi connections. Just be careful of the one with a virus.

Monday, October 13, 2008

recent things I like

- Little baby Lucy and her tiny weeks-old self
- The movie "City of Ember" and its beautiful art direction
- The beta release of Sony's "Little Big Planet" for the PS3
- The projected electoral count results and their upward trending
- The downfall of fear-mongering and hatred in US politics within the last month

Friday, October 10, 2008

i think we all had a hunch

Great video up on The Jed Report right now. I'm embedding the YouTube link below. Worth a watch.

Obama Knew It Was Coming All Along

how low can we go?

Two weeks ago, I logged in to check my 401k only to find that my Personal Rate of Return for the year so far was at -10%.

This morning it's at -26%. And falling.

See ya', retirement. Good thing I'm young.

Monday, October 06, 2008

it's sweeping the nation!

Or, you know, not. Regardless, here's a little game I thought up called "Star Wars Character or Team Member!" Basically, I'll give you a list of 15 names, you tell me which are the names of characters in the Star Wars universe, or the names of people who worked on The Force Unleashed. And no googling. All names come from either the Force Unleashed credits or the Star Wars wiki known as Wookieepedia. Answers tomorrow.

1. Amel Bakli
2. Rego Sen
3. Brett Rector
4. Cane Adiss
5. Jett Lucas
6. Silas Draver
7. Mirena Rhee
8. Siddarth Achrekar
9. Dru Gifford
10. Dann Yap
11. Tam Azur-Jamin
12. Wil Dimas
13. Lina Mardec
14. Ko Sai
15. Hannah Balmor