Another Day, Another Referral Spammer

If you notice another Blogger site by the name of www . kmzackblogger . com in your referrals, know that it is a blog setup to get you to pay for better YouTube video placement. It showed up on the blog I just started for my grandmother's diaries, so I was curious enough to check it out.

Don't click on it.

UPDATED April 28, 2013

Once again KMZack Blogger left a comment, this time with an embedded link to a link exchange. Text follows:

Hey if you still get a referrer as my web (link removed) please aware that it is a kind of system that my competitor did to visual my web as spamming. then if you would like to exchange link with my website please proceed to here..
(link removed)

Since he's hoping to get his links up, the comment is not being put up.

A screen capture of his website (picture is safe to click):

Nothing shady about that, right? A competitor trying to make him look like a spammer isn't very plausible.  I'm surprised he isn't offering the Brooklyn Bridge for cheap.
UPDATE:

It is very interesting that as soon as I post about one of these spammers, more referral spam shows up. It makes me suspect they are all connected somehow.

In this case three different ones:

www . bthemes . info
This looks somewhat legitimate in that it has themes for Blogger. But the fact they use referral spam makes them look quite shady. I don't advise using them for that alone.

vampirestat and zombiestat:

These are run by the same people using the same templates with different graphics and purport to show the monetary worth of websites. I have to wonder how legitimate the Facebook likes and G+ numbers are. Do not go there since there are all sorts of things asking to be installed.

UPDATED:

Yet another referral spammer on Blogger showed up with 11 page views on February 28.

make-money-with-your-blog . review-blogspot . com is another get rich quick scheme making the rounds. "Mary" even has a short bit on the page about people reporting her blog is a scam and that she has "the approval of Blogger." Of course there is only the one post containing a shortened link.

Avoid at all costs.

The Dark Knight Rises (2012) Review

The epic conclusion to the brilliant re-envisioning of Batman by Christopher Nolan delivers in terms of scale, story, and action. Heroics, fights, and explosions abound as befits a summer blockbuster, yet social and political commentary add great depth to the proceedings. Ultimately, it is a more emotional film than expected that succeeds in a way no other adaptation of the property has – making you care about Bruce Wayne, the man.

The problem with trilogies is the high expectations placed on the finale by both fans and movie makers. Somehow the conclusion to a series must simultaneously be bigger than the preceding films while delivering a satisfying ending for the characters. Bigger can be done, since all you need is a larger budget to accomplish that task. Satisfying is an altogether different beast that often remains elusive especially due to the ugly fact that you can’t please everyone. Nolan’s task was huge, if not extremely daunting. WARNING: Contains spoilers for the previous movies.

One of the director’s idiosyncrasies has been starting a movie without the title appearing. Once again the closest thing is the formation of the iconic Batman symbol. In the first two films, a swirling cloud of bats and then flames were used. Rather ominously, cracks appearing in ice briefly form the symbol before cracking further. It’s a wonderful metaphorical device that foreshadows the essence of the story, much like the earlier films.

Health 2-14-2013

It might not be a valentine, but I did get good news from the referring surgeon today: no surgery needed.

In the past few days the abscess has healed  and what is left is hard tissue that will take awhile to break down. So no scalpels and stitches with their accompanying recovery time are in my immediate future. Now to rebuild my stamina, this thing knocked me for quite a loop.

Mamie’s Life

The project I’ve mentioned working on is finally live in a bare bones kind of way. Mamie’s Life is a new blog where I’ll be posting the writings and diary entries of my late paternal grandmother. Much work needs to be done yet including adding photos and a brief biography, but I wanted to get something up for what would have been her 105th birthday.

I was too young when she died to have ever given her a valentine, so this is my way of doing so. It is also my way of getting to know her. Please take a look.

Health 2-11-2013

Well that doctor appointment didn’t go as well as hoped. It was to be a procedure to lance the remaining infection if needed. Instead, the infection is much deeper and in treacherous territory, so surgery is the most likely outcome. I’ll know more after the referral appointment on Thursday.

My blood pressure is still sky high though I’m a lot more alert than I was during the worst of it. Still, it is disappointing and I’m to keep taking antibiotics in the meantime. It would be nice to catch a break in my life, even just once.

Ah well. All I can do is deal with things as they come and focus on the little things.

UPDATED:

After being told that I should continue to take antibiotics and then double checking before leaving the clinic (or so I thought), it turns out that the prescription is not being renewed. This is after sending my father 80 miles round trip to get it. This should get interesting…

What’s Going On

While I’ve been ill, that doesn’t mean things stop happening. Life is like that, it moves on whether or not you think it should. Look around you at the small changes and events occurring without cease. They add up to a lot of things happening if you just open your eyes to them.

Oh and if your were expecting some Marvin Gaye, here he is and you don’t have to read any further:

Fantastic song from a tormented soul.

Now for what’s going on in my life.

Phony Phone Scam Returns

I posted about this particular one before and the ring behind it was supposedly busted. Well, guess who called my father’s phone today? Online PC! They are back like the athletes foot that never quite goes away.

Since I feel particularly cranky today, I didn’t allow the Indian gentleman on the other end get very far this time. Otherwise, it was the same exact con being run complete with a delay before the circuit connects to hear anyone.

I think I confused the guy on the other end, for I was very gleeful about letting them know I would be blogging about it to warn an international audience. Sadly, that appears to be all that can be done.

So if someone with a heavy Indian accent calls you and tells you that you have a virus on your PC or a security problem – hang up. It is all a con to get a credit card number out of you.

Along with some well composed phishing emails I’ve seen recently, it looks like 2013 is going to be a bad one for con jobs and spam.

Finally a Half-Life Movie?

From J.J. Abrams of the Star Trek reboot and director of the next Star Wars movie to boot. Or it could be a Portal movie, though that wouldn’t take a big budget director in my opinion. I’ve waited so long for a movie based on Half-Life that I’m having trouble generating any enthusiasm now that it may happen. That may be because I’m ill right now, but I’d be more interested in Valve finishing the dangling storyline from Half-Life: Episode 2 before all the voice actors die of old age.

Health 2-5-2013

This infection has been impressively debilitating. Now I understand how people can die from such things as I’ve had the oddest impression that I’ve gotten closer to death than ever before.

The initial outbreak site, or hard lump, is significantly larger now being roughly the size and shape of the butt of a rifle or shotgun. It’s a source of continuous pain if I don’t focus on ignoring it.

Oh and that brings me to yet another bizarre experience out of all this during the first days. I use stress reducing meditation methods involving moving my perception around different areas in the body. This actually increases blood flow and lessons pain in my experience, but wow was this different.

Everywhere I moved my perception to immediately began to sharply hurt!

It was the exact opposite result of what normally happens and don’t have a clue about the mechanisms involved. This infection has been a strange odyssey so far.

Today has shown some improvement. Breathing had been difficult and is now easier, which is a big relief. My extremities aren’t icy and appear to be getting decent blood flow again. Stretches of sleep are longer, but not what they should be.

Iron Man 3 Super Bowl Ad: Extended Look

Robert Downey Jr truly is a master thespian.

Some fun for a cold and dreary Monday morning.

Hate: My Personal Origins

A continuation of my essays on hate, this time focusing on how I learned to hate with every iota of my being when I was young. As I’ve grown older, it has become apparent that nurture overwhelms nature to a great degree and looking back at how being bullied changed me I can see that now. Why? Because one can change back after being changed…

I was a cheerful, happy kid who got criticized for talking too much in my early years. The world was so fascinating and a source of constant wonder, so I wanted to share that with others. Born into a family where my siblings were half-brothers sixteen and twenty years older respectively, that meant I was dealing with adults full time and they don’t like to hear from kids. They were also more concerned with extending their adolescence or reliving it, so that had something to do with it.

To be clear, I was never beaten, abused, or mistreated. Instead I was pretty much left to do whatever I wanted -- which could have been disastrous. Fortunately for my parents, I was a relentlessly good kid enamored of heroes and acts of valor. Sadly, I never had the kind of health or physical strength to do much with those impulses.

Interesting Weirdness

As much as I despise writing about my terrible health, I have to say sometimes my experiences with it can be very interesting – if I can notice them past the misery. The infection I’m suffering from right now has given me two experiences involving perception that fascinate me.

The first was awakening and getting up after forgetting to take the contacts out. Everything was foggy inside the house, so I removed them and put my glasses on. There was still a mist throughout, so I took the glasses off. Still foggy. Then I noticed that all light sources had rainbow hues halos around them. Even more strange was that I could look at a naked light bulb without experiencing discomfort or pain, which is extraordinary given I’m very light sensitive.

It eventually faded out after an hour or two, but it was something I’d never experienced before. Today I’m back to light hurting the eyes, so at least that is normal again. What mechanism was responsible for this I do not know and am very curious to discover.

The second experience was time distortion last night. Normally if I suffer it from being ill, it tends to be lost time. By this I mean time goes by in large chunks and I don’t realize it until I see a clock. But last night I suffered time distortion that was the exact opposite. I was dead sure many hours had gone by, but only an hour or so had. Even more extreme was a couple of instances where I thought several hours had passed and it had only been fifteen minutes! It got to the point I didn’t trust the clocks.

Bizarre and disturbing are the two words I’d use to describe that particular side effect of the infection. I hope to never again experience it.

I suppose I should document where things stand with the infection. After two doses of Ampligen, my fever (or more accurately what passes for one with me) broke around 4:15 AM (which I was sure was 6 or 7 AM). Delirium ended after that, but breathing is still difficult.

My blood pressure at the clinic was sky high for me. Initial reading was 150/100 and the one taken after I'd had time to rest was 142/90. I’m usually in the ballpark of 120/80 and even when fighting an illness like bronchitis only hit 134/85 for a maximum. All I can surmise is that my entire system is under attack. Meditation techniques had little effect as can be evidenced by the change in readings.

A Strange Lump

Awakened yesterday with a silver dollar sized lump having formed inside of one of my thighs. It got very painful, but I decided to tough it out. Not so good an idea. It has become the size of a fist and I was very ill last night. Time for an emergency trip to the doctor.

Packing things in a backpack, just in case.

UPDATED:

That’s a relief. Instead of possibly being a blood clot of some kind like I suspected due to location, it is instead a very bad infection. Antibiotics have been procured and a procedure scheduled for when it becomes an abscess.

This one is a doozy, I feel worse than when I had the flu and bronchitis. Once again I am sidelined.

Changes to the Blog and One Thing Not Changing

While I really liked the minimalist theme in place since the beginning of the year, the free template was not very flexible and easily broken. So now I’m trying out this Blogger provided one since it is the closest in feel to it though even more minimalist in appearance. Also, I’ve enabled the Mobile option to see if it displays a little better on smartphones and tablets. Any feedback on that particular feature would be appreciated.

After doing some digging, I found I was not alone in seeing my traffic decline starting in December. Google has made some changes that have demoted a lot of sites in their search engine and it doesn’t look like they’ll be undoing them. That means I’ll never see the traffic I once had

One massive change by Google that is actually destroying livelihoods is a revamp of the image search that now shows the full size images on a website rather than preview images. So sites that would get traffic to sell images and photos now do not because they aren’t linked to as prominently. The theory going around is that this is a result of pressure from Pinterest and Facebook in the arena of searching for pictures.

Weird Movie Origin involving He-Man, Spider-Man, and Van Damme

Movie Legends Revealed: He-Man & Spider-Man Films Became Cyborg ?

Only in Hollywood could something like this happen: a combined shoot of Masters of the Universe 2 and a Spider-Man film in the 1980s instead gave us a science fiction movie B-movie starring Jean-Claude Van Damme.  This little piece of trivia completely boggled my mind for I knew Cannon Films had the rights to Spider-Man for a long time, but to find out it was linked to another He-Man movie is bizarre.

Would this have resulted in cameos in each other's movie for Spidey and He-Man? The world will never know. I do know somebody needs to write a parody script ASAP!

The Folland Gnat: A Lightweight Champion

While my infatuation with very lightweight fighters began with the failed F-20 Tigershark, another stole my affection once I found out about it. The Brits built a plane during the Cold War that couldn't get any smaller and actually succeed. That little bird was the Folland Gnat which served as the RAF's trainer and Red Arrows acrobatic team mount for many years. But it was the obscure Gnat F.1 fighter version that peaked my interest after finding out it saw combat with the Indian Air Force.

Tiny by jet fighter standards and even WWII prop fighter dimensions, the Gnat was a potent adversary in gun based air to air combat thanks to its high maneuverability and hard hitting 30mm cannons. It racked up a good number of kills against Pakistani F-86F Sabres which were not exactly large fighters themselves. This video shows both variants and you'll even see Gnats next to Sabres for an excellent size comparison.

Americans will probably remember the Gnat from the movie Hot Shots, a spoof of Top Gun starring Charlie Sheen. Since it is little known here in the States, I figured I'd link to the video. Folland's little fighter is a good looking plane deserving of some love, in my opinion.

One of these days I'll build the Aeroclub 1/48 vacuform kit of the fighter in my collection. If I only had a nickle for how many times I've said that about a kit...

Fractale Episode 11: Paradise

The ambitious series ends in blood, death, and an extremely emotional ending that upset more than a few viewers online. With the future of humanity on the line, will Clain be forced to watch the love of his life die? Fractale: Reiterated concludes with HD screen captures and revised text.

With too much of a story to fit in twelve episodes, Fractale ends up with only eleven, consequently making this powerful finale densely packed with exposition and action. It is frustrating that this series was rejected by otakus in Japan and one has to wonder what could have been if it they had embraced it. As it is, we are left with this rushed, but conclusive ending to Clain’s journey toward adulthood and the final fate of the Fractale system.

The final episode picks up right where the previous one left off, with a shocked Clain and Nessa being confronted by Barrot. In an effort to protect the feisty doppel, Phryne sends her through the barrier to Clain. However, the Temple’s resident scientist and lecher alters the barrier with a wave of a hand so they can hear everything. If there was ever any doubt he was a sadist at heart, that is erased by his “free lesson” to Clain about the secrets of Phryne and Fractale’s God. Amazingly, the character becomes even more despicable than before.

Health 1-28-2013

Urg.
I’m tempted to leave it at that, but this was not a good weekend and I’m still feeling little better than one of the walking dead. It would be more accurate to call me the “sleeping dead” because I’m what the Brits call completely knackered and spent most of yesterday in bed. At least, I think I’m using that word correctly.
Crossword puzzles and video games have shown me to be very out of it, so the head full of cotton is not making things easy and the results show it. Three tries to spell “results,” sigh.
This is a consequence of doing too much and going out too many times while feeling very iffy this past week. And the brain just turned to mush and I can’t think of anymore to write.

Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) Review

In 2004, Miyazaki’s loose adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones’ novel hit Japanese theaters and quickly became the third highest grossing film in Japanese history.  Filled with lessons about life and love, the film’s main story takes place against the backdrop of massive war with treachery and danger around every corner. Magic meets steampunk, but the movie is really all about heart. UPDATED with new screen captures and revised text.

There is magic to be found in Hayao Miyazaki’s animated films and Howl’s Moving Castle is no exception. If a film comes out of Studio Ghibli you are guaranteed an incredible experience filled with beauty and emotion. Well, anything other than Pom Poko, but the less said about that movie the better. Yes, I am recommending buying this even before starting the review. So what makes it an automatic buy? Read on to find out.

The film begins with the title structure; a steam belching monstrosity on mechanical legs lurching through the mist of an European countryside.  It is a beautiful view of an ugly thing, something that only Miyazaki could pull off. Shortly after seeing the castle ambulate into the mist to escape pursuers, the heroine of the movie is introduced.

An Odd Bit of Spam

2013 continues to be an interesting year for blog referral spam here at From the Sidelines. The latest one intrigued me a great deal due to how ridiculously long the link was:

applehut . info / 2011 / 08 / 05/ woot – deal – 16gb – hp – touchpad - %e2%80%93 – 379 – 99 – 5 – shipping . php

I’ve added a lot of spaces to disable the link from working, but did check it out in a Linux virtual machine. The site is another fake meant to lure traffic in and poses as an aggregator of smart/cellphone news. It even has an “About” page! That particular post is very out of date which was a tip off that they hadn’t really linked me. Also, I’ve never written about the HP Touchpad! Something very amusing to me is that the post itself may have been spammed in the comments.

If you are going to sucker people in for a deal, it would be smart to at least have the date on the post be within the current month and year, don’t you think? Not to mention using a product that isn’t out of production and replaced by cheaper alternatives that are vastly superior.

As far as how safe the link is to check out, I cannot say since I used Linux to visit it. There might be some Windows (or other OS) based malware there in the ads, but I wouldn’t be able to tell. I highly recommend not clicking on this or any other link from there in your referrals.

Also recommended is adding Google Analytics, Statcounter, or some other tracking service rather than relying on Blogger’s own stats. They filter this spam out a lot more effectively, though they aren’t bullet proof. In the end, your own judgment is your best defense against spam.

Neither registered this referral.

Saw Two Sundogs Today

So of course, I did not have a camera along. My hands are too shaky too take pictures using a cellphone, so you will have to accept my word on this happening. They were equidistant from the sun on either side and fairly bright. It was if a rainbow had tried to form and forgot the arch only leaving the supporting pillars on both sides. The arcs visible in photos at the Wikipedia entry on sundogs were not visible at all, which made them even more surreal looking.

It was an interesting day that was capped off by seeing this coming home from running errands and getting groceries. Due to hitting a hardware store that actually has plastic model kits and supplies for that hobby, I’ll be getting back into that pronto. Funny, I dreamed last night that I needed to put shelves up in the weight/hobby room for built models. This was an unusual occurrence, so it should help me keep to that promise.

Health 1-21-2013

Last week was not a good one with chest congestion, coughing, and sinusitis flaring up. I didn’t get half of what I wanted to achieve done, but that half that got done was worth hurting my health a bit. More driving than I’d done in a long time was part of it due to church related tasks, so I really can’t complain too much.

Suppressing coughing and sounding like death warmed over was the main problem once I got anywhere. Since the effort involved forced a lot of down time on me, I did play a lot of video games – poorly. It was time killing at its most grinding, involving dying repeatedly in order to advance along storylines.

Today is going to be a very tired one, that I can already tell. Monday’s usually are but I put out a lot more activity this weekend than I probably should have. It will be nice when the flu and other bugs going around finally fade out in this area.

Dry in the Breadbasket

Forget about the fluctuating temperatures this winter because there is something more problematic going on with the weather. There is a serious lack of precipitation to alleviate the drought that has been going on since last year. Take a look at the map and you’ll see the heartland which produces most of the wheat, corn, and soy beans is not doing well.

Not a pretty picture, is it?

Locally, things aren’t great, but could be worse. The fields near creeks and rivers fared well, but those farther out varied considerably this past growing season. Even though we are near two creeks, quite a bit of the corn was underdeveloped. Farther west things were a lot worse in Minnesota.

The map tells me food prices will be going up with even more pain at the grocery store than just the inflation we have been experiencing. Lucky for me I’m attempting to downsize my body so less food isn’t a problem. But to families raising children this is a real concern.

Hopefully the weather will get more unpredictable and do something to relieve the situation. If you are interested in following the drought, check out the National Drought Mitigation Center page for it. It is regularly updated, hence the screen capture above to catch the moment.

India's Bantam Weight Fighter: The LCA Tejas Displays

I've always had a soft spot in my heart for light weight fighter jets and so has the Indian Air Force. They are more committed to the concept than any other country with a sizable air force, but their aging MiG-21s are true antiques in the 21st Century.  For some years they have been developing an indigenous fighter to replace the Russian plane in a protracted development that makes the F-35 program look speedy by comparison.

The LCA Tejas is a small delta winged single engine multirole fighter. While still not ready for prime time and not really in service yet despite official pronouncements, it is an interesting little plane. Much propaganda about it has been put out, but it is no match even for the now elderly F-16 (40 year old design now). Talking about any fighter project tends to devolve into mindless nationalism, so my writing that may offend some -- but it is the truth.

Still it is not a bad idea for the needs for India, since the likely opponents are China and Pakistan if conflict arises. It could make for an excellent little point interceptor especially if the Mk 2 ever gets built with a more powerful engine and AESA radar. To me, it is a modern Folland Gnat F. 1 which was a dandy little fighter proven in combat by India.

The big question is will it ever go into full production? Only time will tell.

Until then, enjoy this flight display by one of the repainted prototypes. You can tell it is one by the peeling away paint on the underside showing the original gloss white scheme.

Fractale Episode 10: To the Temple

The penultimate episode of the series is filled with battle, deception, and desperation as the forces of the Lost Millennium rebels attack the Temple. But will Phryne’s attempt to broker a peace produce results or make things worse? Fractale: Reiterated continues with new HD screen captures and revised text.

With the previous episode being more introspective and structured as a setup, it was guaranteed this one would be packed with action and so it is. Jumping straight into a pitched battle warns us there won’t be any of the prior humor present. In fact, this is a deadly serious episode.

To the Temple opens with a colossal air battle between the airships of Lost Millennium and the Temple. It is a kinetic and frenetic battle that looks spectacular. Both sides land blows and it gives a real sense of war also while being reminiscent of Studio Ghibli films. The quality of the production only falters once when a CGI stacked squadron of Temple ships attack and that was a minor thing, in my opinion. The Blu-ray/DVD release made that particular moment look a little better, but not much.

In the midst of this aerial chaos, Clain and Nessa arrive in the little airship. Threading through the flak, they manage to dock with The Danan to inform the Granites of Phryne’s running off to attempt negotiations. Cue the opening title sequence and the roller coaster ride that follows.

Animal Crackers (1930) Review

Following up their other Broadway hit turned motion picture, the Marx Brothers once again hit pay dirt at the box office with their second film. But a skimpy plot serves only to bridge one silly gag after another with plenty of songs thrown in for good measure. While not as good as their first film, there are plenty of laughs to be found.

After the success of The Cocoanuts transitioning from stage to screen in 1929, Paramount was eager to repeat the formula especially since Animal Crackers was already running on Broadway. Victor Heerman was brought on board to direct with the hopes he would be able to keep the wild brothers under control.

All that did was lead to another clash between Groucho and a director. What resulted was essentially a stage production put on camera with little directorial creativity. Fortunately, the Marx Brothers were more than able to carry the film despite that large handicap.

The movie begins with a display of a newspaper after the credits end. To make sure we ignorant savages understand what is being presented, close up shots of pertinent information are shown. From that we are meant to glean, the setup involves an explorer, Captain Geoffrey T. (for Edgar) Spaulding, and a famous painting arriving at a wealthy socialite’s estate. Mrs. Rittenhouse (Margaret Dumont) is a widow of some means. Which means Groucho will be soon hitting on her.

Since this was an early talkie, we are subjected treated to the sight of the butler singing as he instructs the staff on how to handle the guests. It goes on far too long before seguing to Roscoe Chandler (Louis Sorin) arriving with his prize painting by Beaugard. Don’t bother searching, the painter and painting are fictional. I suspect people searching for them on the Net would have amused the Marx Brothers a great deal.

Yet Another Reason Why Hollywood Is Evil

Ever see the mashup of Buffy the Vampire Slayer dealing with Edward from the Twilight movies? It just got a lot harder to see since Lionsgate has ordered the video deleted from YouTube. Read about the whole ridiculous mess at Ars Technica.

This is what happens when a system stops being truly creative and relies desperately on intellectual property to eek out every last cent they can. McIntosh is clearly within the bounds of fair use, yet he can’t get a fair ruling. The system is very broken with no signs things will get better.

In fact, I suspect it will get even more draconian.

A More Sophisticated Referral Spammer

2013 seems to be shaping up to be a spam heavy year and one that has been around hit my blog today. ontimemarketing . biz takes you to a Wordpress blog that at first glance appears to be legitimate. But spend more than a couple of seconds looking at it and you find that the posts are all taken from other sites to give the illusion that it is serious.

Well, it is serious about one thing and that’s generating online traffic to it in hopes you will click on the wall to wall ads and deals posted there. That is how the owner of the site makes money. I highly doubt Tiger Direct and The Huffington Post are contributing posters to the site given how amateurish the layout is. It is enough to fool spiders from registering it as a fake site, however.

Please do not click to go there. While I detected no malware, I was using Linux to visit the site, so be careful if you do.

Now back to working on real content for this site!

Remembering to Breathe

One of the stranger things about having an upper respiratory infection is that there are times when you cough so much you forget to breathe. This might sound silly to someone who hasn’t had to deal with the problem much, but it happens. When it does, I have to slow down and concentrate on the normally automatic act of breathing.

Breath control and meditation go hand in hand, so that has been a huge help in the latest bout that went from bronchitis to pre-pneumonia. Thankfully the latter stage has been too mild to bother going in to see a doctor with only a small amount of blood present in a couple of coughs. It is when it is brown that I worry. Experience teaches you a lot, especially about things you’d rather not know.

I’m still coughing, but things are much improved though my reserves of stamina are kaput. Not that I had a lot in the first place, but they got me home from visiting Indiana between the holidays. Ricola cough drops have been helpful and I better remember to take some with me to church tomorrow.

More Thoughts on the Nook HD

Since I’ll never get around to writing a full blown review, I’m going to type some more of my impressions of Barnes and Noble’s 7” Android based tablet. Video playback, book reading, and the child friendly nature of the Nook HD will be covered.

The screen is even more phenomenal than I first thought. One of the knocks on color LCD tablets is that you can’t read them in bright sunlight, unlike the E-ink based readers. To my shock, this is not true with the Nook HD. All you have to do is up the brightness to maximum and it will do just fine. I tested this by reading while being in very bright sunlight surrounded by white snow – and wearing sunglasses which make LCD reading very hard.

Now I no longer covet having a simple Kindle or Nook for bright days. This is huge because I primarily use my other tablet for reading. It being so lightweight makes reading on it a joy.

Video playback has been an interesting odyssey. Things look fantastic on the display with the difference between high and low definition sources being very noticeable. Streaming has been an interesting experience due to the closed environment of B&N.

First Referral Spam of 2013

The new year has hardly begun and a new spammer has shown up: videoshub . needz . it. From the spelling, I can only surmise that it is a link to tawdry materials of a graphic nature. It is highly suggested you do not click on it if you find it in your Blogger stats.

Fractale Episode 9: No Way Out

A quiet and introspective episode that is heavy on character development after the nightmarish events of the previous installment. Much is revealed about Phryne and Nessa, while the drums of war beat ominously in the background.The beginning of the end for the series is in sight with one last look at some of the charm that permeated the first two episodes. Fractale: Reiterated continues with new HD screen captures and revised text.

A pause to breath before the final battle is always good to have in any story, despite what some action film producers might think. This episode is all about that breather, but the consequences for the actions taken earlier unfold for the Granites throughout. While it is a slow down in action, there is none in content.

After the explosive ending to episode 8, No Way Out opens with a door opening. This particular door belongs to the emergency shelter seen just before the big bang unleashed by Dias and happens to have Clain pushing it open. He, Phryne, and Nessa are safe but the Temple base is now a gigantic crater in the ground. The little Phryne clone was obviously killed in the explosion, for there is no sign of her. Hopefully, the perverted Barrot was atomized. From the ground, Clain waves in a joyous Enri to come get them.

Obama Does Have a Mandate…

…The Congressional Republicans gave it to him. That is just what happened in the fiscal cliff game that played out in the wee hours last night.

An interesting opposing viewpoint can be found at Reason.com.

I’m not even going to go into the disastrous economics involved in the deal. What interests me more is how the whole thing played out. Obama went from a moderately strong hand to a total victory that impressed, though he had all the trump cards in the first place. Fear of those trump cards was more powerful than they actually were and he didn’t even need to play them.

The Blog in 2012

It was an interesting year for From the Sidelines with unexpected solid growth in traffic ending in an abrupt collapse in visits and pageviews. A picture is worth a thousand words as they say, so take a look at this traffic cliff via Google Analytics:

While I still can’t concretely say why things went that way, the most likely explanation is that Google demoted my site after I altered the robots.txt. That was done to make Bing/Yahoo finally index everything. Despite submitting the proper sitemaps to Bing, that search engine was never able to crawl the whole archive of posts after many months of trying.

So I tried adding the relevant sitemap coding for overcoming Blogger’s limits of showing only the last 25 posts to the robots.txt. It worked like a charm and made everything visible to Bing’s spider. A week later and Google capped me at 150 impressions a day for the blog. Suffice it to say that the microscopic uptick in traffic from Bing/Yahoo failed to make up for that.

Really, does anybody use Bing?

Planning Ahead for 2013

There will be some changes coming for the blog in the new year, but most will not happen for a good amount of time. One thing that will happen sooner rather than later will be a new second blog that will be a major project in 2013. Work on that will commence this week, in fact. It will take time from this blog, but it shouldn’t be too bad. There will be more reviews, life events, and the occasional essay.

Plans also include finally learning proper HTML and XTML coding to create my own template for this blog. That will be awhile, due to other things I will be trying to learn including how Linux works (going Kabuntu for that), playing guitar (yet another try to remember to try), and hopefully some fiction writing.

Why am I making plans when I think the country and the world economy will probably fail? Because if one knows history, one understands these things happen all the time. Funny thing, humans always survive these periods -- though I sometimes wonder how we survive the periods of plenty given how self destructive so many of us are. So when I have typed about the very bad stuff coming down, I do not believe it is the end of the world. In fact, it is the height of arrogance to believe the downfall of one’s society is the end of the world. It smacks of every ancient culture who thought the sun rose and set because of their pharaoh or king. 

Life goes on and only cowards die a thousand deaths, though given our hyperactive modern lifestyle and inflation, it is probably more like a thousand deaths per day. I don’t live that way because that isn’t living. If I were to give one message to the world outside of a call to come to Christ, it would be to man up.

So those are my big plans and we’ll see if I pull any of them off. There are a billion and one other things going on and always new developments to deal with as well. This keeps life from being boring, but it does mean being mentally nimble on your feet. Attitude dictates the altitude your spirit flies at and nothing will teach you that better than dealing with the unexpected.

Nook HD 7" Tablet First Impressions

The big gift I received this year was a white Barnes and Noble Nook HD from my sister and her husband. Dad got a gray one so it has been an opportunity to observe a tablet rookie deal with the device. What follows will be a short series of comments and I'll go more into the Nook HD at a later date.

The first thing that struck me was how light and compact it is. Compared to my iView CyPad 760TPC, it is thinner and a touch lighter. The difference in dimensions worked out so that my modified Kindle Fire case by Poetic can hold it, but I recommend getting a case designed for it.

The next thing I noticed was the quality of the display. At 1440 x 900 it has impressive room to render web pages and equals laptops in resoulution. This is actually better than 720p and HD streamed content is amazing on the screen. Even more impressive is the sensitivity of the touch screen -- it is actually easy to pick out the tiny links on a web page.

Sound is much better than I expected. The stereo speakers on the back have good range and are clear even with case covering them. A variety of anime, movies, and YouTube videos have been thrown at it without too many problems.

App selection is tiny in B&N's store and the Nook HD is locked to it exclusively. One of the prominent bundled apps for Hulu Plus has a serious issue of perpetually looping commercials on the first or second commercial break making it useless. Another app notorious for that is Crackle's, but it runs just fine on the Nook HD. Weird.

While I haven't personally run any games on mine, the step nephew and niece have on theirs with total fluidity.

The builtin ebook reader software is excellent and I like it better than the Kindle due to font handling and the fantastic display. Reading is a joy on the device.

It should be noted that the Nook HD is software tailored to be a dedicated book reader with a secondary purpose of displaying movies. It is not aimed at being a general pupose tablet, though that could be changed in the future if B&N so wished. The hardware is certainly capable of it.

My Nook HD is the 8gb model, but can be expanded out to an additional 64gb via a microSD card. The charger and data cord is proprietary, so taking care of it is a must. It does charge amazingly fast from a wall outlet.

The only browsers for the tablet are the modified Ice Cream Sandwich Android browser and Dolphin. The latter can play YouTube videos without issue, which is good because the app is not available for the Nook.

So far I love how responsive the Nook HD is and the display. I do not like the limitations on apps because you can't even side load them! I'll  play wth some workarounds next week and report on how that all goes.

Bleh

Bronchitis again. I will wait until it's pneumonia before seeing a doctor. Sleeping has been very difficult , which makes healing hard as well. All this makes me not very much fun to be around right now.

It's a heck of a way to spend a holiday visit. Not recommended.

Health

The period between Christmas and New Years Day is traditionally a time for me to get sick. The last few years have been blessedly different; alas I find myself ill again this year.

A mild sore throat has ballooned into something more painful and constrictive. A sinus infection is developing too. It could be worse. My father who rarely gets sick, has been very ill to the point of barely keeping anything down.

At least he's getting better while I'm getting worse so that we weren't taken out at the same time!

Waxing nostalgic lately actually paid off when an old therapy for a swollen throat came back to from childood. Crushed ice or sucking on small ice cubes does wonders.

Nearly Past Twelve

2012 is almost over and I have mixed feelings about the year that was.The promise of a better start gave way to the realities of life very early on. Woes carried over from 2011, with the most obvious being the impact of not having a functional car for many months.

That supremely curtailed my driving and ability to get around. However, there was a silver lining to the loss of auto motion. Friends were amazing at coming out to the hinterlands where I reside to pick me up and deliver me home. Overnight stays became a regular occurence which is something I wasn't used to -- or expecting from others. It was the first time since childhood that I realized people were willing to go out of their way to help me.

After finally getting the car back, another setback hit in the form of a miniscule deer tick and its nasty payload of bacteria. Lyme disease was the verifired diagnosis that made my late Spring miserable. Though I downplayed it, the illness really did do a lot of damage and took a long time to recover from.

That recovery really didn't happen until October when I look back at the experience. Since then, my health has improved to the point where I am able to see results I'd expected in the first half of 2012. Better late than never.

Politically speaking, the year was an unrecoverable disaster that will be seen as the beginning of the end of the Republic. Conflict and strife are inevitable and unavoidable now. People who are ignorant of history will consider this crazy, of course. I write it dispassionately with a dash of sadness that the classic cycles of history never are overcome. It is selfish for me to want to have lived in only a good cycle and acknowledge how very spoiled I've been.

While spiritual gains are what I desire the most out of life, the bulk of my gains have been material. My movie collection expanded greatly due to the collapse of DVD and Blu-ray prices. Patience netted me long wanted CPU upgrades and a move into tablets.

There has been a great deal more that happened, good and bad. The post would run far too long if I covered it all, so I will wrap up.

The world may be in decay, but I feel strangely settled and prepared here at the end of 2012. Each year, fear becomes less of an emotion and more an abstract concept. Perhaps it is the beginnings of true peace of th soul. All I know is that it isn't a bad place to be.

Another Night Before Christmas

It seems like last Christmas was only a little while ago, but I find myself contemplating the birth of Christ once again. For once I can say not a creature was stirring, but that’s only because the cats are sleeping. Since I am unable to get into the modern “holiday spirit”, I watched a movie rented from Netflix that I’ve been trying to get around to for about five years.

The Nativity Story turned out to be a wonderful film that only took a few liberties in recounting the story of Mary and Joseph leading up to the birth of the Savior. It was a very grounded and realistic account of living in those perilous times (have there ever been any other?) while showing the great faith those two special people had in God. We often speak of Mary, but it is Joseph whom I admire the most.

It was no small thing to accept and protect the pregnant virgin and the pressures must have been immense to deny her. That would have most likely resulted in her being stoned to death along with the unborn Jesus. Even with an angelic visitation to affirm the truthfulness of his wife, such peer pressures were great especially in the society of that time.

Another thing that struck me was how important John the Baptist’s birth was for Mary. The miraculous pregnancy of his mother, Elisabeth, had to have paved the way for the acceptance of what happened to Mary as well. Not only did he prepare the way for Christ with his ministry and teachings as an adult, his very birth may have ensured Mary’s survival.

And thus the greatest gift the world was ever given was safeguarded.

“For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” Luke 2:11

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” Luke 2:14

A merry Christmas to all, for the rain falls on all of us.

Godzilla vs Biollante (1989) Review

A surprising release on Blu-ray shows off the most experimental Godzilla film ever made in all its odd glory.Over the years, the radioactive goliath has fought and conquered other mutants, dinosaurs, giant insects, alien monsters, giant robots, and even King Kong. But nothing can prepare even an unstoppable force of destruction for the dangerous power of a giant rose bush. No, I’m not kidding.

Serious kaiju fans and kids of the 1970s will recall a dark period with no Godzilla movies coming out. This was horrifying to those of us who enjoy a good city trampling and so it was a big deal when Godzilla 1985 (or Return of Godzilla outside of North America) arrived in theaters. It did not do remotely as well as expected in the U.S.A., so the next film in the series had some trouble getting released here. It didn’t help it bombed in Japan, but it did truly begin the Heisei era of Godzilla.

That movie was Godzilla vs Biollante and it may be the closest thing to an art house movie in the long cinema career of the monster. Words are insufficient to describe how weird this movie is, even for a kaiju flick. Still, I am going to try my best.

Right off the bat, the movie crams a dense amount of information before the credits stop rolling. It starts with the oh so 1980s high tech computer text describing different levels of Godzilla alerts which are somewhat along the lines of severe weather bulletins. Next, a montage shows a condensed version of the events of the previous film which ended with Godzilla imprisoned in a volcano. When this and the credits end, we get to see a very blond and Anglo reporter covering the devastation in Tokyo. She’s also speaking in English with very large Japanese subtitles on screen.

Amidst the wreckage, a group of men in military gear and protection suits are looking for Godzilla cells. Why? It will get explained by the copious exposition in the movie. The big surprise is that they are all Americans speaking English and I had to pause playback for a moment to see if I had enabled the correct audio track. Yep, it was the Japanese one and I was still waiting to hear any Japanese.

Survival and Pants

Looking out the window, it appears the world did not end the other day. While I see a fair amount of snow, there is no where near the amount that was forecast for the winter storm two days ago. There have been no sightings of giant wolves or of an immense serpent, so Ragnarok hasn’t happened either.

I have always wondered what people who are terrified and panicked by end of the world theories/rumors do the day after it doesn’t end. All those plans put off, belongings given or sold to others, and bills unpaid have to be a big a slap to the face as the failure of the planet to go up in flames. How about facing friends and neighbors?

So life goes on, the wheel in the sky keeps turning, death and taxes still can’t be avoided, and there still isn’t much on TV worth watching.

We hit –4 F last night and it really feels like winter now. Trudging up the driveway to catch a ride yesterday was a cold endeavor, but I handle it better than I used to. Between the weights and the meditation methods, my body has decided it can circulate the blood after all. Yesterday was fun going out with friends to browse movies and pistols, then playing D&D. I didn’t get to do anything other than a small amount of role play during the session, which was good because I wasn’t feeling too well anyway.

Today is a bit tougher and I’m trying to work myself up to weight training and getting one last movie review written for the year. The collapse in blog traffic still isn’t explained and this is the lowest it has been in years. Google probably demoted me in searches for some arbitrary reason. All of that is automated through algorithms and is highly impersonal. It won’t stop me from posting as I have anymore than the increasing traffic had changed my habits.

Yesterday did have some bad moments, though. Two pairs of pants, one only a couple of months old, tore in the crotch. So there went the money I was saving for a big purchase early next year. I could only afford to replace the jeans and will try to figure out if I can somehow mend the khakis since they are so new.

Pants have been an illustration of why inflation has been bad for some time. The fabric used in pants has gotten thinner and thinner with the stitching actually ripping through it in some cases. Formerly good brands like Wrangler and Levi have become low quality and I don’t know if any good quality jeans are out there these days. It’s hard for me to view pants as disposable when I’m paying $20-25.

So if you are hoarding for disaster, you better buy a lot of jeans in order to survive, since they will fall apart under duress more than they used to. I wonder if I can duct tape the khakis…

A Short Note to 2012 Doomsday Worriers

The world is not going to end. Life will continues, so get on with it.

Oh and please take my late mother’s advice to “dread only one day at a time.”

Winter Weather, Last Minute Shopping and Al

Here in the Southeastern tip of Minnesota we got more than the one inch of snow that was supposed to dust the area yesterday. Tramping out to the car it varied from three to four inches deep and made cleaning the Subaru off a bit of a chore. But my father and I had good reason to go out despite the snow. It had suddenly dawned on me that he hadn’t done any of his Christmas gift shopping – not even online. I checked and sure enough that was the case, so something needed to be done about that.

Heading for La Crosse, the situation reminded me of my late friend Al Ulven. Al was the proprietor of a drug store and a variety store in the small town of Spring Grove. Many believed he made a great deal more money than he actually did, so it was always amusing to watch him around Christmas time.

Though thought of as a miser, Al really didn’t have extravagant sums to throw around. His adult children were often in need of help and the profit margins of his businesses were pretty slim. Did all this make him a Scrooge?

No, he was a giving person, if frugal. But it was the nature of his Christmas gifts that made me shake my head in wry amusement. You see, Al would always wait to the last possible minute to get Christmas presents. Usually this was on Christmas Eve and he wasn’t willing to travel to the nearest city of La Crosse to shop.

Instead, he would put out the least amount of effort possible. Once he claimed that he wanted to keep it local to help the community, but I called him on that since he almost always bought the gifts from his own store. The truth was he was too lazy and would put the shopping off until he was backed into a corner.

So some of the oddest presents would be given with little tailoring to the individual. Knick knacks aimed at elderly women were presented to bachelors, office supplies to kids, and so forth. The thing is he would give the gifts with a twinkle in his eye and you couldn’t get offended even if you wanted to.

Another Christmas time memory of Al was triggered by noticing the lights festooned by the City of La Crescent on some of their trees along the highway. He was always involved in the city council in Spring Grove, plus the Ballard House and other town institutions. Sometimes he would shanghai me into assisting in some of the tasks involved and one time it involved replacing light bulbs.

How hard could replacing a few light bulbs be?

Said light bulbs turned out to be on decorative strings meant to festoon the trees in the town’s biggest park. Many long strings of lights that had been subjected to the worst that Minnesota winters could throw at them were stored away waiting for winter to come again. This was before LED bulbs and so many feet of had to be checked for bad bulbs.

Untangling Christmas lights is tough enough for decorating trees in the house, now imagine industrial sized lines determinedly knotting together. It was tempting to use Alexander the Great’s solution to the Gordian knot, but these were expensive items. The size of the them meant it would be difficult to work on them, but fortunately the Fest Building was available to do so if a little chilly.

There Al, his friend Ted, and I worked on untangling and laying out lights, then plugging them in. Searches for broken and burnt out bulbs followed with many a light needing replacing. Al would be in and out running errands during the work which took hours. Eventually all the strings that were fully functional were carefully wound into bundles for others to put up on the trees. That entailed bucket crane work and I’m glad it wasn’t my job.

I miss those misadventures with Al.

Windows 8 First Impressions

Oy, where did everything go? The Start screen is a pain in the rear. Getting to settings for hardware and software takes even more digging than in Vista and Windows 7. This was a particular pain since I had to hack drivers for my audio card to work properly. That little endeavor was painful, but ultimately successful in granting me full optical out.

I don’t like that I was forced into 32 bit Win8 due to the downloadable cheap upgrade locking you into whatever was on the system before. Be warned you will need the much more expensive disc version to move to 64 bit. Me, I’m cheap or I would never have upgraded.

Flash player is being temperamental in Firefox 17, yet works just dandy in Internet Explorer 10.

I do not like how difficult it is to get to programs now. Everything is aimed at the Start page, which is a garish mess. I feel like I’ve been thrown back to Windows 3.1 it is such a step backwards. This interface will not be put on my main PC unless I’m forced to by Microsoft.

If I hadn’t gotten an Android based tablet earlier this year, I’d have no clue where things were hidden. The interface is completely smartphone and tablet centric, which is pretty useless when using a mouse.

At least Win8 is running fast on the old hardware which has an AMD Opteron 180 Dual Core 2.4 ghz processor with 2 gigs of RAM.

A Curious Decline and Other Things

Since last Thursday, the traffic to the blog has dropped to a fraction of what it normally is. I don’t know if it was my tweaking the robots.txt earlier in the month knocking me down in the search rankings or what. That has since been returned to the Blogger default since the tweak served its purpose in getting Bing to actually index the whole blog. Arcane stuff, but interesting to learn.

It’s a good thing I don’t earn any money off of this site!

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey In-Theater Review

Having survived the long trek to see the midnight showing, I will attempt to give a brief (and spoiler free) review of Peter Jackson’s return to Middle Earth. It was the Digital 3D version at 24 FPS, not 48 FPS that I saw, so no comment can be made on the controversy surrounding the new technology. Fears of odd coloring that had been raised after early footage was released can be put to rest for the movie looks and sounds like the previous Lord of the Rings trilogy.

The best way to sum up my feelings about the film is that it was a nostalgic return home, for I felt that peculiar emotion during the scenes that were set in very familiar places from The Fellowship of the Ring. It didn’t hurt that there were familiar faces from that film and that the beginning of this movie dovetails into the beginning of that one. For my final thoughts you can skip to the end of the review, since I’ll be going into technical details about now.

Pacific Rim Trailer Does Giant Robots Right!

This looks spectacular and should appeal to giant robot fans and kaiju fans equally. It looks like more fun than should legally be allowed.

That Was a Lost Day

Shortly after writing my last post on health, I fell completely apart. It is probably a virus of some kind, but I ended up sleeping most of the afternoon into early evening. So not much got accomplished. By the way, have I ever written how much I hate sneezing? It makes my teeth, back, and elbows hurt. No clue on how the last can be affected by it.

I did watch the second half of The Return of the King Extended Edition in preparation for The Hobbit coming out this week. Something that struck me while watching the Blu-ray versions of the trilogy was how well the CGI effects blended in with the rest of the footage. It may be my imagination, but it seemed like it was more seamless in 1080p than when I watched it on DVD on the old television. Specifically, there was little of the “popping” where outlines of composited effects stood out. Gollum looked particularly good.

Since I don’t feel well and writing was not happening, the work I planned on The Last Starfighter review did not progress. So I took notes while watching The Dark Knight Rises on Blu-ray instead. It is a fantastic transfer of a brilliant film, but it will be awhile before it is reviewed thanks to all of the extras included.

Meanwhile, I’m downloading some games that I only played as shareware back in the ‘90s. GOG.com is having a winter sale, check it out for DRM free games from yesteryear. Given how slow my reflexes are now, I’ll be playing them on easy mode.

Well, my thoughts are moving about as fast as cold molasses, so I’ll quit writing while I’m ahead.

Health 12/12/2012

I’ve fallen behind on these, so time to report. The molar extraction went well last Thursday. It was odd to be hooked up to heart monitor and blood pressure cuff the entire time, but at least I had some feedback on using meditation methods. The heart rate didn’t change even when the oral surgeon was wrenching the tooth back and forth. So that was interesting.

He had good technique and I think I embarrassed him when I complimented him on it.

I only took one Ibuprofen to lower swelling and promptly forgot to take any more afterward. The oral surgeon didn’t believe me when I predicted that when refusing a prescription for pain killers. With this experience, I can say that the meditation for pain therapy course was well worth it.

Weight training has continued successfully and now I have an app for my Android based tablet that helps me keep track of all the exercises, reps, and sets. It also has a timer for resting between sets which is very helpful in making me rest the proper time. While most of the benefits of weight training don’t show up quickly, it does put a spring in your step early on.

Yesterday and so far today have been low ebb. Congestion and higher pain levels (especially the lower back) have been the defining symptoms. Video gaming has been an exercise in sheer obstinacy with many deaths due to slower than normal reflexes.