Zalen

Webcomic Lovin'

In which I give props to certain web-comics (or things that are close enough) that you may not have heard about. Many of these are fairly new, some of them are just things I wasn't aware of before.

Punch and Pie: A spin-off of Queen of Wands
Emma: Steampunkish Fantasy Goodness
Dreamland Chronicles: Holy smokes, a bi-weekly 3-D comic
Dresden Codak: Philosophy and Weird Science
Looking for Group: Typical Fantasy Comic; Atypical World of Warcraft Comic
The Perry Bible Fellowship: This thing keeps winning awards but I keep missing it, reminds me a lot of Bill Plympton, who was my favorite animator some time in the late eighties

Sure, I have serious, dreary comics in my mix, but they've been there a while, so it was time to punch it up with bright colors and puppies. Exploding puppies, perhaps, but puppies all the same.

A Matter of Authentication

I'm turning anyone-comments off. This journal has become mainly a spam-trap and I don't have the time yet to commit to solutions, so if you do want to say something you'll need to get a TypeKey from SixApart. I apologize to the people who distrust any sort of tracking method.

Mainly people seem to come here for the post Academic Funding Frustration, a warning to people about agressive sales techniques during a vulnerable time.

In short, don't let anybody push you around.

Blue Christmas

This year we had a very blue Christmas. Water's blue, right? We had a lot of that. It wasn't the nice, soothing warm water of late autumn that we've had around here lately, but the hard, I-want-to-be-snow (or-at-least-sleet) water come spring. A gray, drizzly day is not the best way to greet the most familial day of the year, whether your family is connected by genetics or friendship.

Fortunately, I have nephews, and it's great to be jumped on by a pair of excitable boys who want to drag you into their world of Christmas-time greed first thing in the morning (but not, thanks to efforts of their parents, at 6 am). So it rained, and rained, and rained some more, and I hoped that all that rain wouldn't turn to ice in the evening, but it felt like Christmas and for that it could be as blue as it wanted outside.

MacHeist: Falsities of Value

Recently I started paying attention to the Delicious Generation interactive advertisement, MacHeist, taking half an attempt to their puzzles and seeing which shareware apps are offered as prizes.

But not is all as it seems behind the vault...

]]> The list isn't bad. Alarm Clock Pro, Soulver, Cha-Ching. These are apps that have either been done before or serve a very niche role. But that doesn't matter because they're free? Right? On top of that, each puzzle gives me $2 off some super-bundle to come at the end. In fact, the current MacHeist list I have so far says that I have $144.75 for free. Wow.

I'm put in mind of the economy of digital theft. Music and movie industry representatives put great store in saying how much money they lost over pirated content, as though "lost" is the same as "never had". In the case of MacHeist, I'm being told I have $144.75 in shareware, only somehow it's become the opposite of digital theft. I'm being told someone's stuffing huge wads of dollar bills into my pocket, or at least software of equal value.

The reality is a little different. Of the nine programs currently on the list, one of them comes with a serial number and can be upgraded and the others are locked to that version. And that upgradable app? Yeah, it's in beta. There's no telling whether or not the serial number will extend to the finished program. So what I have, in fact, is my choice of limited trial licenses, billed at current application price. From a marketing standpoint it's a great idea, and I applaud it, but just as the music industry is overvaluing their loss, these companies are overvaluing my gain.

Now, I know these are shareware companies and they're unlikely to come beating down my door for not paying, but to tell me that I have a $25 app when I have maybe half of that is worth a healthy eye-roll. When I pay for a program I'm not just paying for the effort you put into making it, but I'm also paying for the effort of getting all the bugs out and the security that if I do have a major problem with the app you'll do something about it. I may or may not be paying for the extra features to come later, but that gamble is on my shoulders. My eye-rolling comes from billing functional demos as full-priced apps.

There are kickers to this, but they're hardly worth in-depth study. I'm unlikely to use all of these applications. I'm certainly unlikely to get more than 15% off the final package, because nobody is going to pay for crippled software and the Delicious Generation programmers are quickly learning that giving things away for substantially cheaper or free is a huge gamble.

Because I'd only play around with these programs, having them limited in scope is quite alright, and the companies get exposure to people who might then pony up $20 for the full thing, so in a way, everyone wins. They're big demos, presented in a fun way, with an increasingly active community of junior sleuths. Do we get something for our troubles? Oh yes, but it's worth about as much as we put into it, and that's not $144.75.

Lever, Button, Cookie

Yes, yes, I voted, stop hounding me! I voted so hard my state turned blue! Some people might not think voting yourself blue is something to be proud of, and might think of sending me a hand-creme or something so it doesn't happen again, but it's good to finally get that kind of release.

The tool I used to get myself raw with delight was not in fact made by the infamous Diebold but instead was made well-enough that other people (who were voting themselves either red or blue, since that seems to be the way of things these days) noticed that the machines were turning them the opposite color desired. I say: If you're going to get raw on a machine, you'd better be sure it works.

So now I'm going to coddle my blue state until I'm over it.

'Kay, Thanks

The phone rings. I pick up.

Me: Hello?

There's a pause. I know what The Pause means. The Pause means I should hang up immediately, because there's no presence until the computer hooks people up. I've used this for amusing disjunctive conversations in the past, but I try to keep things fresh.

Uncertain man: Hello?
Me: Yes?
Uncertain man: Is this (my name)?
Me: Yes?
Uncertain man: Hello, I'm calling from Time Warner Cable? I'm calling to let you know about our new phone?

Time Warner Cable has been obnoxious lately. In fact, they called me yesterday. And a few days before that. Everyone sounds around twentyish and inexperienced. In fact, I imagine they are people who answered the ads that read, "Make $$$ in your spare time from home!!!"

Each time they make the same mistake. They pause here. They will pause for up to about ten seconds here. What a perfect time to break in, which more experienced callers won't let you do until they're confirming your address.

Me: Oh, okay, thanks!
Uncertain man (flustered): Uh, sure.
Me: Bye.
Uncertain man (still flustered): Bye.

Thank goodness some people were raised with decent phone manners.

Capsule Review: Dead Man's Chest

Did I like it? Yes. Was it as good as the first? No. Read on for my 99% Spoiler-Free review.

]]> Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest is a fun movie about love interrupted, greed, and doing the right thing. Surprisingly, not the Disney version of "doing the right thing" but a version more closely in line with the real world. Dead Man's Chest is much darker but, unfortunately, weaker version of the original.

The Good: ILM is not always dead-on (The Mummy Returns, for instance), but except in very few cases here they've absolutely nailed the special effects. The story is good, but Jack Sparrow is much more of a bumbling buffoon than drunken master in deference to focus more upon the Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann characters - and a few other re-appearances. The story isn't much about Jack at all, but that's okay.

The Bad: The things that Disney shoves down your throat, which they don't do in the first movie because they didn't expect it to succeed this well. But now they have you, and they're going to do things to you that you don't necessarily want. The fortunate part is they don't do it much, which takes the pressure off. There are enough that different people will see different problems, and some that I didn't notice, just be warned that they're there.

The Ugly: I didn't like how in Matrix Revolutions the movie ended and they tacked on an extra five-minute teaser scene in attempt to tie it into the next movie. I don't like it here, either. It's not the cliffhanger it is in Matrix II but it can't help but smack of "oh no, what will happen next!"

In second place is that it is not always clear where people are.

Defining Moment: Will Turner, looking for Jack Sparrow, very quickly goes through the first half of the first movie in about thirty seconds. You might miss it. Dead Man's Chest has a lot of this; every so often there's something - from a nod to a scene that's uncomfortably out-of-place - that harkens back to the first movie, to the original Pirates ride, or both.

And, as in X3, stay to the end for fun, after-credits huzzah.

Muy Fabuloso!

Today is Fabuloso Friday courtesy of Ze Frank, normally a liberal comentating New York performance blog artist (performance ... art ... blogger ... comment ... hell, just watch it). This Friday, he harnessed the power of Wiki to let his general watching audience to write his script for him. Is this truly Fabuloso? I don't know, but it's a great distraction during half-time.

Yeah, It Freaks Me Out, Too.

I was reminded that today is 06/06/06, a phenomenon that won't happen for another thousand years, by which time we'll have progressed on to using symbols instead of numbers, if you believe the neo-historical travelogues of Doctor Who. Lacking basic training in Christian-based numerological superstition, I wasn't aware that today was different than any other day, although I still grin like a five-year-old when my digital clock says "12:34".

And then I tripped across this site which sells soft-sculpted full-head masks. Their purpose? "PhotogenicMasks have been created for anyone who desires to become a girl quickly and easily."

I kid you not. This is the wearable equivalent of RealDolls.

For anyone who is fortunate enough not to know what a RealDoll is, I'm going to ruin it for you: It's a full-sized female doll designed to have the look and proper fleshy feel that humans have - oh, yes, and be anatomically correct. I'm not sure which is worse: That people are buying these dolls, or that men are dressing up like them.

Everyone has their kinks, but for me it's Furries and Plushies, all over again.

Happy Satan-Day, everybody!

All Things New and Sparkly

My CRT monitor died. I was rather sad, because it was a 20" half-width CRT made for doing graphics work, and a steal at $60. It twitched, then it flatlined.

I had a spare LCD (from when a company went completely bankrupt) but it was not something for matching colors. Or even reading text. (When the iLiad comes out, I'm going to have to restrain myself heartily to to just walk out and buy one that day.)

Faced with the fact that I had to buy a new monitor, I skipped the CRT option entirely, though it would undoubtedly have been cheaper, and instead got this one:

I feel much better, now.

Click-Click, Snap-Snap

Hey, everybody! When you go on a trip and take hundreds and hundreds of pictures, it's difficult to pare those down to enough that your free Flickr account doesn't have a fit, but I think I've managed to get across the idea that I like museums more than soccer. Not that I don't like soccer, but in the right places soccer is just a gateway drug to museums.

Academic Funding Frustration

I've been casually looking into alternate ways to pay back my student loans when I was approached by a loan consolidation company known as Academic Funding Foundation. They tried to push me to do everything over the phone so all I had to do was sign the contract and Fed-Ex it back to them, to which I kindly declined until I could find out more about the company.

It turns out that nobody knows much about the company, not even the Better Business Bureau. Huge warning signs, big and red flapping in gale-force winds. So I asked: How do I know you're legit? Their answer: We're working with graces from the Federal Government. My retort: Prove it.

I'm still getting phone calls, almost daily, asking if I have any questions. Today I said, "Yes, and you should know what they are by now." I should just tell them to take me off their list, but it's now a test. Can they prove they have the backing of the Federal Government to properly handle my student loans?

Word Baloons

I can like comic books. Honest! Check out what grabbed my attention on Thursday.

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I have no idea what it's about, yet, but I figure it's got copious overprinting and smoking guys with suits (which never ends well). As long as it's not "Clerks meets Reservoir Dogs", I think it'll be fine, not that it'd be hard to combine the dialogue of the two.

Pots au Creme du Loser

So, occasionally I try something new when it comes to cooking. A long, long time ago, a doctor friend of mine and I went to a "buy our drug" seminar at Handke's here in Columbus. Most the people were there for the free meal -- it was very, very good -- but I took notes.

Last night I tried the second iteration of their chocolate pudding (err, pots au creme du chocolat). It didn't set, so I ended up with eggy chocolate milk. I was sad.

It turns out nearly every recipe is different than the one we were handed that night. I'll try this again with an easier recipe. Serves me right trying to cook with directions from a gourmet chef.

Folio (with a dash of Port)

While working for Borders, I came up with a number of different badges to wear. This one was for Borders Espresso (B.E.). You can see how adding color changed the design slightly, then how vector changed it a bit further.

This is part of my "sort of like a portfolio" series which will slowly be growing on my Flickr site. It certainly makes paying for a pro account more attractive.