Weight Loss Referral Spam

It seems to be a week of heavy traffic in Blogger referral spam and I wish there was a diet we could go on to lose it. The latest links to a video from a chiropractor and “wellness expert” calling himself Dr. Charles from Fishers, Indiana.

current . com / 1rhh7kc is the link showing up today, but it has also been showing up in large quantities as www . filmhill . com / redirect . php?url=http:// flf-course . com?a_aid=510d2acc92117&a_bid=6f93443e for some time now.

UPDATE 1: Now it is coming as vk . com / away . php?to=http %3A%2F%2Fflf-course . com%2F%3Fa_aid%3D51893d1ad4b02&post=18068744_31

UPDATE 2: Once again the link has changed, this time to appear to be coming from LinkedIn. www . linkedin . com / redir / redirect?url=http %3A%2F%2F flf-course %2Ecom%3Fa_aid%3D517d0f042c205&urlhash=e75j

UPDATE 3: As of June 26, 2013 a new link has appeared: http:/ /t . co/ MaAptuGFVu that is of course the same video.

UPDATE 4: July has found the video making its way into referrals again, this time as blogsrating . pw/ An interesting thing happened when I loaded the site – it ran a very long load with many blogspot addresses going by in the info bar of the browser. I’m no code expert, but I wonder if it uses every hit on the site to send further referral spam hits to our blogs.

Also, it appears to be using Russian resources, surprise, surprise.

Screen capture of the Current version:

Screen capture of the Filmhill version:

Yep, it’s the same thing with only the sidebar being different.

I should also note I had to “hard” shutdown my virtual Kabuntu session to get out of the second link. Whether that has something to do with my video card drivers or the site I can’t say, but I don’t advise visiting the sites. Besides it’s just another scam to get money out of you.

Ray Harryhausen Died

The master of visual effects Ray Harryhausen was 92. I recently was talking to a high school senior who surprised me because he was trying to remember films he loved as a kid to get on Blu-ray. Those films turned out to be Jason and the Argonauts and the Sinbad movies that were Harryhausen’s babies. I’d watched Clash of the Titans a few weeks back and thought to myself that it was the perfect swan song for his stop motion effects.

The movies he made were magic to me growing up and the creatures may have moved in jerky fashion, but they all had real personalities. In the end, that was the secret to Harryhausen’s success. Somehow he imbued his creations with a feeling that they had emotions in such a way that kids of all ages could instantly connect with them. It made the movies such a delight on a Saturday afternoon.

Ray may be gone, but his spirit remains. If you loved the cave troll in Fellowship of the Ring, that was a true homage in CGI of what he did. So many directors and special effects artists were inspired by him that he’ll never really be gone from cinema.

Now he’s off in the afterlife with his best friend Ray Bradbury probably coming up with some new wild idea to play with on a galactic scale.

Health 5-7-2013

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… it is the most mediocre of times.

I finished the antibiotics on Saturday, so of course a deer tick bit me last night. It didn’t wait for the 72 hour period doctors and researchers think is the minimum, it was on me for less than 24 hours guaranteed. Fortunately for me, I found it right after it bit.

My first 2.5 mile walk of the year turned out to be a lot tougher than expected yesterday. The off and on infection has taken far more out of me than realized. Now to get back to weight training – perhaps today if my morning twitch reflex test is any indication. My last blood pressure reading was 134/82 which I consider to be too high even if ill. Moving and functioning should help with that.

Stargate: Continuum (2008) Review

Stargate: SG-1 as a television series ended, but the adventures of the team continued in this direct to DVD and Blu-ray feature film. A nefarious plot by the last remaining major villain leaves the team stranded in an alternate timeline and powerless to affect events. An amazing array of familiar faces from the entire ten year run of SG-1 make this a fan’s dream, but the story and action set Continuum apart from being just an extended episode. UPDATED May 2013 with new screen captures and expanded review.

Stargate: SG-1 has played with time travel nearly as much as the Star Trek franchise, usually with superior results (sorry Trekkies). Once again the creative team uses the concept, in this case to show a what if scenario of the Stargate never being used in modern times by the U.S. government. Jack O'Neil makes a return appearance early in the film, as does everyone's favorite System Lord, Ba'al. What follows is one of the darker stories told in the Stargate universe, allowing the entire cast to show off their acting chops.

Director Martin Wood starts the movie off with a bit of fun: a continuous single shot traveling through SG Command. While not quite up to the level of Orson Welles’ famous take in A Touch of Evil, it is pure fan service for longtime followers of the series. Watch for cameos of fan favorite supporting characters who won’t be seen again in the flick.

Eventually the camera catches up to final incarnation of the SG-1 team made up of Lt. Colonel Cameron Mitchell (Ben Browder), Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping), Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks), Teal’c (Christopher Judge), and Vala (Claudia Black) as they prepare for an easy mission for a change.The last clone of the last of the Goa’uld System Lords, Ba’al, has been captured and slated for “extraction.” Okay, if you aren’t a fan of the series, the preceding sentence made absolutely no sense, right?

Nook HD to Get Google Play!

This is very good news for owners of Nook HD and Nook HD+ tablets. Barnes & Noble is not doing well and there was talk of spinning the Nook off from the main company if a buyer could be found. That would have meant being locked into their software and content store which could go under at any moment.

Instead the full Google App experience is going to come to the Nook HD:

Faster Web Browsing with Chrome: As Web browsing continues to be among the most popular tablet activities, NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ now feature the Chrome browser for fast start up and page loading and an unlimited number of tabs open at once. Customers can even sync bookmarks across any device with Chrome.

Google Search^™, Gmail^™, YouTube^™ and Google Maps^™: Customers will have instant access to Google Search, Gmail, YouTube and Google Maps, now built in to NOOK HD or NOOK HD+. Sync calendars across multiple devices and check email from any account including Exchange, Yahoo! and Hotmail.

This will be rather nice since it will all work with the built in user interface, which I like but cannot use in my semi-hacked Nook HD. Apex Launcher has been installed to allow access to my non B&N apps. I’ve actually been using Google Play since early January and for the most part it has worked well. One thing that I hope is improved is compatibility checks with apps. Some don’t understand that the Nook HD is more than powerful enough to run them.

I use my Nook HD everyday and love the thing. Fast, light, and a beautiful screen in a 7” format have made it my perfect tablet for reading, research, and Sunday school teaching. Have I mentioned I love the thing?

Defeat and Victory

If there is one thing that can be said about high technology is that when it works it is like magic and when it doesn’t it feels like a curse – or cursing. So I’ve been dealing with an ugly side effect of upgrading to the GeForce 650 TI this week. Every game I’ve thrown at it has run faster and looked prettier with two exceptions. They would be Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3.

Neither will run. The best I can get out of them is a slideshow after the intro movies. Neither can connect with EA’s servers and the moment 3D graphics are used they run about 1 frame every 2-5 seconds.

Normally I can solve such a problem on my own or by browsing gaming forums. Not this time. Every trick and tweak known has been tried including:

• Reinstalling the games.
• Installing Nvidia’s latest beta driver.
• Reinstalling DirectX 9.0c.
• Reinstalling PhysX.
• Setting processor affinity via task manager.
• Setting processor affinity via a utility.
• Running windowed.
• Running with the resolution low and all the pretty settings at lowest.
• Glaring balefully in the direction of the games.
• Deleting save games and imported settings from previous installments.

My suspicions lean toward bad PhysX coding in the game, but from all the complaints online about something having changed for the worst in recent months one has to wonder.

What’s really ironic is the more temperamental first Mass Effect runs beautifully. Of course it is on Steam…

I give up. It is rare to be defeated this way and it is very disappointing. Time to remove the games from my drive and gain a huge amount of space back since I have all the DLCs.

Some of the aggression I felt after that went into tearing my PC apart to install an intake fan Gateway never bothered to. It involved snipping rivets (and using a Dremel on two) to remove rails for hard drives plus unplugging just about everything that could be unplugged. Nearly three hours of fighting and fuming later the new fan is working nicely.

The air flow has always been suspect in the case and now it should be just dandy. Now to test how gaming temps go, though the cold front threatening snow make it a little harder to verify.

Nearly 2000 Movies Taken Off Netflix

Checking the news this morning revealed that Warner is removing 1794 movies from Netflix’s streaming service. It reminded me of an argument I had a few years ago with my brother-in-law about Netflix having a future via streaming. My position was that the studios would eventually shut them down by starting their own pay services.

Sure enough it has begun despite Disney’s earlier exclusive deal with Netflix. A month ago (or was it two) I was notified that Warner had started a streaming service of its own, Warner Instant Archive for $9.99 a month. I occasionally purchase made to order DVDs from them so it was not a surprise to get an email from them. The collection is all older movies – for the moment. I expect that to change over time.

BTW, a lot of content is shown as available in 1080p HD. I can’t say it is tempting enough to merit $10 a month, which works out to $120 a year. Other services such as Hulu Plus and Crunchyroll are available at cheaper rates while Sony has a free service, Crackle. Maybe the service will fall in line with them eventually, but it is hard to tell.

Roku and PC are what’s supported at the moment via Microsoft’s Silverlight technology, which was a surprise since Flash dominates the streaming industry. This is another nail in the coffin for Adobe’s fading standard as the Web transitions slowly due to Apple’s refusal to support Flash in iPads and iPhones.

Rumors have been floated that HBO might start an online only subscription service for their shows, so this is not an isolated incident. We’ll be seeing more fragmentation in services as time goes by since studio executives blame streaming for loss of revenues from DVD and Blu-rays. They want profits to go back up or go entirely to them. Hulu may not survive if it is finally sold off since the content won’t be included thanks to this kind of reasoning.

I wonder which studio will be next to launch their own service?

A Thank You Speech to Remember

Actually there are three, but the last is the most eloquent and appropriate acceptance speeches ever given. This is from Rush being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an ever controversial institution. I know I'll never forget Alex's passionate speech.

Area 88 Ep. 4: The Treacherous Sky

It may start with a bang, but this episode is more about revealing Shin’s mysterious past than aerial combat. When a mission goes wrong, the Japanese mercenary pilot finds himself alone in the desert. As he struggles to survive he is forced to remember how he ended up in a civil war far from his home.

Area 88 is at its best during slower moving episodes rather than the flashy dogfights. That’s rather ironic since I suspect most people who watched the series were attracted by the action. With the fourth episode, the main story begins in earnest. The questions of who is Shin and why is he here are finally answered.

An ominous tone is set early on when Shin Kazama lands his aging F-8E Crusader to refuel. Pickings have been slim in the skies lately and this causes the resident ace to press his luck. His mechanic Gustav warns him he’s being reckless, but the dollars associated with each kill matter more.

Makoto photographs all this as usual despite feeling something is wrong. Gustav, on the other hand, actually knows something is wrong. He can hear a malfunction within the Crusader’s turbojet engine.

Ah, There You Are Spring!

At long last we broke the 60 F mark today. This tied a record for the region set in 1951 according to the National Weather Service. I’m feeling slightly better so I’ll venture out to hike the driveway to the mailbox in a bit. Oh and there is sunlight coming out of a blue sky too. My thimble runneth over!

It has been a long, hard winter and I’m glad to see it finally end. Maybe people around the area will start cheering up. For awhile now it has seemed if everyone was either on edge or gloomy. Yesterday at the clinic there were a lot of comments about doubting spring would ever come only partially tongue in cheek.

Oh and the  right front brake has been fixed on the car, though it will be necessary to replace the other side soon. At least we don’t have to worry about braking anymore. Trying to down shift and not stop doesn’t work so well once you are in the city.

The world might end tomorrow (doubtful), but at least there is sun today.

Health 4-24-2013

Oy vey is the phrase that fits right now. I’d been feeling dizzy the last week or so and also noticed a little pain where the infection from February was but saw no swelling. That changed today.
The pain escalated until it was impossible to ignore this afternoon and so I checked again. It looks like the infection has returned. My suspicion is that it never fully went away because there has been no cat clawing me incident lately.

So it is off to the clinic tomorrow.

All of this is adding injury to insult thanks to one of the car’s rotors being shot. So no safe long distance travel and now this again. I’m going to have to get a ride from a neighbor at this rate.

What an exceedingly bad year this has been so far.

UPDATED 24 Apr: Back on antibiotics and the abscess is draining again. That's almost as nasty to type as witness happening. Thanks to what I learned last time, I got in early enough this time around. At least I now know why I've been out of it since Sunday!

A Very Strange Blogger Referral

I checked my stats today and found a referral that looked extremely suspicious:

mysql . removeyourcontent . com / russ_pornbb_spider / admin / hentai_check . php

An attempt to access this through a virtual machine asked for an admin login plus password and when I limited it to the domain I got an Apache 2 test page. Apache is one of the most common software packages that runs servers.

To my eyes, it appears to be a misconfigured spider checking web sites to see if it can drop porn spam. Either that or it is looking for porn. The hentai part of it relates to anime and the referral showed up on one of my anime reviews. Since I don’t have any hentai this is a dead end if it is a search.

Could it also be a way to get into an Apache server? I wish I knew more about the software to say.

Monkey Business (1931) Review

What do you do when you’ve had two smash hit movies adapted from Broadway plays? In the Marx Brothers’ case, they headed West for their first Hollywood film. The result is a movie that is very different from the previous two while cranking the insanity to eleven on a scale of one to ten. A wafer thin plot usually sinks a movie, but the Marx Brothers manage to stay afloat in this truly madcap comedy set on an ocean liner.

A mere four years after the revolutionary The Jazz Singer ushered in sound for movies, Monkey Business showed just how important the new technology was for comedy. There is no way the Marx Brothers would have been a success on the silver screen without hearing the machine gun patter of Groucho, the puns of Chico, or the harp playing of Harpo. Zeppo was always going to be along for the ride and could have been mute.

 

The movie begins with a creative way to present the credits: they roll on screen pasted on barrels. If you look closely, you can see that the photos were cut out and varnished on. So why barrels?

I’m tempted to say, “Why not?”

But there is a reason for them…

Whither Spring?

I looked out the window to see a gray haze filling the far end of the valley. The winds were picking up and then the haze was upon the house. What was it?

Snow.

It hit and was gone again in a matter of a couple of minutes to afflict other residences.

Sigh. I’m tired of the cold and the pain it brings to my back along with my joints.

Anyway, as I await spring arriving, I’m trying to get another movie review finished. The national events have kept me away from getting it done, but no more.

Boston Bombing Suspects in Firefight with Police

If you thought all the confusion and misidentifications were dramatic, things just got crazier. More bombs, lots of shots fired, suspect in custody and another on the run in Watertown all after killing an M.I.T. security officer. Once again things are confusing and unclear though we now have names: Mike Mulugeta and Sunil Tripathi. Incorrect info. Dzhokar and Tamarlan Tsarnaev are the correct names.

Somehow I don’t think they are Tea Party activists.

BREAKING 2nd NIGHT

6:00 PM CST: Shots fired in Watertown, families being evacuated from one street. 20-30 shots fired. Suspect is down.

He in a boat on a trailer in a back yard. Robot being brought in to search for explosives.

6:25 PM CST: From the scanner stream… He’s still moving in the back of the boat. Police are having trouble getting fields of fire cleared to avoid a blue on blue. Police dogs are being coordinated so only one will go after him if he runs.

6:56 PM CST: Two flashbang grenades have been used after seeing a possible small fire on the boat. No movement by the suspect in reaction. This is after he’d been seen sitting up more than once. A negotiator may be brought in. Tsarnaev is on his back not moving.

7:30 PM CST: Not much happening other than the suspect has been seen moving his arms and is covered in blood. State police chopper did illuminate with Midnight Sun spotlight, plus the police are irked that somehow the downlink video has shown up on the Net. Not sure if that really has happened or if it is the scanner audio being out there that is the problem.

It has been surreal following this via the streamed scanner. Time for me to head out, maybe this will be over by the time I come back home.

FINAL

Arrived to see friends play at a local American Legion to see the news go by on the TV that they captured Tsarnaev alive about a half hour after I last posted. I doubt they get much useful intel out of him since it was his brother that got the training. I am concerned that he didn’t get his Miranda rights and since he is a citizen, that’s flat out wrong. He’s not a foreign combatant and must be treated with the rights that are due to him, no matter how evil he is.

Previous postings after the fold.

Moving from Radeon to GeForce Again

Getting a better monitor seemed like a great idea at the time, but performance issues in games became noticeable on my aging system once 1920 x 1080 became the default resolution. The Gigabyte Radeon 7750OC is a great budget videocard that handled 1680 x 1050 well ever since my Palit Radeon 4850 died. It was the only card at that time which would fit in my case while having any kind of decent gaming performance.

A visit to Newegg.com to check out the newly released AMD Radeon 7790 based cards produced a possible replacement from Gigabyte again for $150.00. For some reason, I decided to see if any Nvidia based cards had come out in smaller size. Somehow I’d missed the introduction of the Nvidia 650 TI family of GPUs last fall.

Being one to save $20 I ended up ordering Gigabyte’s GeForce 650 TI in the 1 GB factory overclocked edition. The videocard is very small with amazing performance for its size. Luckily for me I got a good one straight out of the box.

Some initial observations follow since I won’t actually benchmark the performance.

Further Confusion and Fallout

UPDATED 12:20 PM CST: CNN is saying a suspect has been identified in the bombings. Also, more ricin packages sent to President Obama and Republican Senators.

With things still trickling out about the Boston Marathon bombing, we have another terrorist tactic being trotted out again. Mail to a United States Senator has been verified as containing ricin, a deadly poison made from castor bean plants. This particular method of trying to kill someone was last seen in 2001 and it sounds like it is unrelated to the bombings. There has been some question as to whether the government was correct about the identity of the culprit last time, so conspiracy theorists have new grist for the mill.

Meanwhile, we know a little more about what happened in Boston. Pressure cookers packed with black powder and probably ball bearings were used for the bombs. This is a method favored in Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan by Muslim terrorists which hints at a jihadi. In those circles there has been a call to hit sporting events lately.

Nobody has stepped forward to claim responsibility. To me this suggests a lone wolf though the idea that drone kills and such have driven terrorists further underground to the point where they don’t take credit intrigues me. This would show a level of intelligence and restraint previously unseen which would be a very bad thing. I’d rather it be a lone wolf.

It doesn’t matter if it is a lone wolf or an organized operation at this point because the government is acting like they have zero leads. While not reassuring for the public, it could be ruse so that they can track down the terrorist. At least I hope that’s the case.

What’s worse than the horror of the explosions is how the media is behaving. There has been a desperation to make out the culprit as being a white male right winger rather than simply report the news. Even if that does turn out to be the case, there is more than just a bias showing. There’s a desire for it to be thus that overrides factuality and demonstrates how hopelessly divided the nation is becoming. It is also begetting a backlash.

So score one for the bomber whatever his political, religious, or ethnic motivations may be. He’s helped make things politically worse on the national stage.

In other words, he succeeded despite all the feel good that Bostonians have rallied together stories.

Terrorism Hits Boston Marathon?

I checked in on Yahoo and saw that two bombs have gone off at the Boston Marathon today. The use of trash cans and backpacks have been reported, which sounds like a classic lone wolf bomber, but it is very early yet. Other reports say a suspect is in custody. As is usual not much is really known with talking heads and Internet denizens speculating all over the place.

There are deaths and many injured, that much has been confirmed.

It doesn’t look like an Al Qaeda style operation and reminds me of the Olympics bombing in Atlanta…

…and as soon as I typed that, the rumor that a 20 year old Saudi national is in custody. Like I typed before, it is early. That would go against the talking head speculation that it is domestic terrorism connected to Patriot Day or anti-tax groups.

UPDATE: Cell phone service is being shut down to prevent further bomb detonations. Precaution or do the authorities know something?

UPDATE: Now the Boston PD says they don’t have anyone in custody and cellphone companies say there is service in the Boston area but that it is under heavy load. Total confusion.

UPDATE: I think it is going to be awhile before we know a lot. In the mean time, I feel the frustration of not being able to do anything other than pray for those killed and injured along with their friends and loved ones. Also, the police, EMT's, and those that helped on the scene go through a lot dealing with such carnage. Please keep them in mind too.

The Most Successful Lightweight Jet Fighter

I’m on record as being a fan of lightweight fighters and there has been none more successful than Northrup’s F-5 family. Starting with the T-38 Talon supersonic trainer and F-5A Freedom Fighter the jets have been gracing our skies since the 1959. F-5E Tiger II fighters are still in service around the world in upgraded form and as Marine aggressors in fighter school training here in the United States.

Lovely little jets and the video is in HD at YouTube.

The Swiss have flown them as a demo team for years and this is one of the most attractive schemes the F-5 has ever worn. If you are in Europe you still have the opportunity to see them in action at air shows.

What amazes me about the plane is how small it is when you see it in person. It reminds me of a sports car in its compact size and looking like it is going fast even when parked. What a beauty!

Health 4-11-2013

While being energetic is permanently out of the question, there has been a slight increase in energy. Dizziness is still there on occasion, but far less than it has been. The last year has taught me that I have to pace myself no matter what now and that I can’t be pushing my limits like I prefer to. I really don’t like that.

One thing I’m grateful for is that I don’t suffer from seasonal depression. It seems a lot of people are and the long winter has gotten to them in more than an annoying way. Me, I’m just annoyed when ice causes me to get stuck in the driveway.

Of course, my attitude may have something to do with bright sunlight hurting my eyes. Gray days are actually more productive for me in my strange existence.

April Hail

This is supposed to be the season of April showers to bring forth May flowers, but what does April hail bring?

We had quite a storm here last night with two rounds of hail involved. The entire area was hit by this according to Channel 19 and I feel sorry for anyone outside at the time.

Fortunately the car is not dimpled from I can see this morning. This is despite the gale force winds driving the hail that made a din that I’d never experience before. Later rain reduced the cover somewhat leaving a well salted yard under the gray skies of today.

More rain, freezing rain, and snow are in the forecast to make things even more fun. It will be hostile weather until Sunday rolls around with 50F temperatures again. Have they executed that groundhog out East yet?

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) Review

Hiyao Miyazaki’s second film that he directed displays all the elements that have made him legendary: a brave heroine, a strong environmental message, dazzling flight, and extraordinary images that linger in the mind long after the movie ends. The story follows a young princess trying to save humanity while facing hostile neighboring kingdoms, deadly giant insects, and a world devastated by an ancient war. It is a great pleasure to review the movie that allowed Studio Ghibli to be founded.

Way back in the early 1980s, animated movies were in the doldrums with Disney suffering a creative and financial slump. Other studios attempted to recapture the magic, but none saw great success. In later years Disney would rise again, yet it was over in Japan that real animated magic was reborn thanks to the creative genius of a struggling forty year old animator named Hayao Miyazaki.

Having had some success in directing the adaptation of Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro in 1979, Miyazaki wanted to make his own creations but was getting nowhere. It took Toshio Susuki the editor in chief of Animage magazine befriending him for things to finally start rolling. Finding Miyazaki bursting with ideas he suggested that Hayao create a manga to run in the magazine.

That manga debuted in 1982 and was called Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Its success made it possible to raise funds to make a movie and the world of animation, not just anime, would never be the same. Miyazaki’s works would go on to influence traditional animators and even the new wave of computer generated animation movies at Pixar.

Nausicaä opens with a masked man riding a strange dodo-like bird out of a wind swept haze. Visually and auditorily striking, the scene seems to step straight out of one the era’s fantasy magazines such as Heavy Metal or Epic Illustrated. I have the vague memory of seeing the intro either in stills or possibly flipping past the horrifically altered version Warriors of the Wind on HBO at the time. Suffice it to say this was nothing like the staid Disney animation of the time and made an impression.

The man investigates the ruins of a settlement that has become overgrown by fungi in a very grim introduction to the setting. Once the credits start rolling it becomes clear that this is the future Earth and not some fantasy world. A wealth of information is quietly and quickly conveyed through intercutting tapestries depicting the downfall of man with the actual events briefly glimpsed. Fire breathing giants laying waste to the world alternate with images of a white winged woman sometimes clothed in blue dominate the introduction…

The Week That Was

It is hard to believe it is General Conference time again – time does fly. The past week itself went by rather quickly thanks to a road trip on Wednesday.

Monday I accompanied my father on a pair of repair jobs and ended up not helping at all due to not being needed. However, it was good to get out of the house. Having the car out of action again has been frustrating. Anyway, the second call was at a friend’s place where the dishwasher pump isn’t working properly. While I was there, his son suggested watching his new Yellow Submarine Blu-ray which looked great even if the animation was pretty bad.

Also, in retrospect it made Magical Mystery Tour look sensical (this isn’t a word, but should be) by comparison in my opinion. This opinion will be shared by exactly zero other people in the world.

April Fools Day Delivers the Spam

It was an unusually sedate April 1st without any friends pranking me. But a wave of spam hit one of my email accounts. 61 were caught by filters and three made it through for the biggest spam assault I’ve seen in years. All were diet/weight loss centered with many purporting to come from celebrities ranging from Oprah to Pamela Anderson. Other common elements were the phrase “special offer” introducing a link and Microsoft Office Word 12 formatting.

It makes me wonder if it is connected to the attacks on Spamhaus, an organization that blacklists known spammer IP addresses. Probably not, given the ridiculous number of spammers out there. There seems to be no end to the Black Hats on the Net.

More interesting is that weigh loss spam is amongst the most successful in getting people to open it. Nothing beats social engineering for finding a way into a system as the banks in South Korea found out last month. I remember when it was false protestations of love or romantic interest that was the best bait to get people to open emails.

It is amazing that spam is still successful given how old email and the Internet are now. One would think people would stop falling for this by now. I guess P.T. Barnum was correct about “a sucker born every minute” – except he never said that.

Can’t trust anything, can you?

Easter

A joyous Easter to all fellow believers and unbelievers alike!

I find Mark Chapter 16 to be fascinating for it shows how even the apostles were capable of disbelief in miracles. The first followers of Jesus to find he had risen again after being crucified and buried were not to be found among them. Instead, women were the first:

And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him.

And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.

And they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?

And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it was very great.

And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted.

And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him.

But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you.

Shortly after that, Christ appeared to Mary Magdalene and when she told the eleven apostles they didn’t believe her. When two more encountered Jesus they weren’t believed either. It took the Savior showing up in person to convince them:

Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen.

For those who struggle with faith or think they have no faith it should be noted that the original apostles didn’t do so well in that department themselves. It is an understandable reaction to living in a harsh world and I’m sure they rationalized their disbelief quite well with perfect reasoning. Yet in the end they were wrong for Jesus lived and still does.

There are many good lessons in this account, but the one I’m dwelling on this Easter is how we can easily blind ourselves to the words of others. In a world filled with lies and the liars that tell them, there is a danger in trusting no one at all but ourselves. To a “doubting Thomas” such as myself, it is a needed message from time to time.

Ten Years Gone

For many Christian people this is Easter weekend and a time to reflect on the Savior’s great sacrifice for all of mankind. For me it is something more and that’s the tenth anniversary of my mother’s death. Much has changed since then and some things not at all.

It is odd how it seems so recent and at the same time longer than a decade ago. Her death was the kind of thing that should have left reoccurring nightmares behind for my father and me, but did not – at least in my case.

Knowing the anniversary was approaching, I’ve been collecting movies that were among her favorites and part of family tradition for the past year. Some we already had on DVD or were on VHS, but many only became available in modern formats since her death.

So tonight we watched one of her favorite comedies, Raising Arizona. While I didn’t plan to do that, it kind of happened anyway much like the unplanned events that happen to the hapless protagonists of the film. I think my mother would have approved.

Better to Burn Out than Fade Away?

I’ve been suffering burn out lately in one area and have had a very hard time overcoming it. Fortunately for me, the area is not what anyone should consider an important one. What I’m talking about is gaming – especially video games.

When I went through the month plus of fighting that infection starting in February, I played a lot of video games while being unable to do much else. By the time March rolled around, I was getting more sick of gaming than I’d been ill from the infection. Looking at the back log of Steam sale purchases generates no interest whatsoever. I’ve also stopped playing League of Legends.

Other than a brief period of playing the last DLC for Mass Effect 3 (which is more like a visual novel most of the time), only Audiosurf has had any appeal. That’s most likely due to its simple graphics and use of my personal music collection. Going from that, I’ve purchased Beat Hazard Ultra on sale for ridiculously cheap from Steam since it also uses one’s own music.

Will it break the burn out? I’m beginning to wonder since I’ve been suffering from it for a month.

Gorgo (1961) Review

What do you get when you make a knock off a movie that copied of one of your own films? You get another sea monster played by a man in a rubber suit rampaging through a capitol of a nation, but this time it’s London! When a giant monster is found in the depths on the North Sea and captured, it sets the stage for one of the angriest mothers in cinema history. Combining death and carnage with the heart of a family film makes Gorgo an oddly sweet story. Updated review with new HD screen captures and Blu-ray details!

One of the inspirations for Gojira aka Godzilla, King of the Monsters was 1953’s The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. So it is rather interesting that the director of that film, Eugene Lourie, was also the director of Gorgo, which is obviously inspired by Godzilla. After being berated by his young daughter for killing the Beast, Lourie decided to make a monster film with a gentler take. Well, the movie isn’t that gentle, but it is not as somber as Gojira, that’s for sure.

Oh and if you are looking for a review of the new Blu-ray release, it can be found in the Technical section. If you want the best copy of the movie, the Blu-ray is a must buy.

Gorgo opens up with a group of salvagers working on a wreck off the coast of Ireland. The captain of the ship, Joe Ryan (Bill Travers), is concerned about a strange bubbling in the water nearby. When his best friend and diver Sam Slade (William Sylvester) is late coming up, he becomes even more concerned. It turns out to be a false alarm, but what happens next is completely unexpected: a volcano emerges from the sea and erupts! Nearly capsized, the ship suffers enough damage to be dead in the water.

Comment Spam

From the Sidelines has had a visitor named “fati” from Casablanca, Morocco attempt to post twice during the past two days on different referral spam posts. The content of the comments is the same:

It's easy way to make money
Super-Duper Easy Way to Earn Money By
Promoting A link - 0.5$ per Referral Link Visit.
-Register
-Share Refferral Link
-Earn Money on every visit

A shortened shortened link is also included. I’m not going to click that for obvious reasons.

It’s fascinating to see how prevalent “black hat” methods of generating income from ads on the Net have become. Some of this is typical of how underhanded people always exploit anything that can be exploited. But I’m also becoming aware that some of this is a reaction to how hard it is to make money from running advertisements on a website these days.

Money is tighter and tighter in the current world economy that’s teetering on collapse and ads have always been nebulous in results. With the Web coming into being, actual viewing and response to ads has become a harder science than it was. Results can be tabulated in near real time, targeting has become extremely refined, and wasted efforts easier to avoid.

Google has tried refining its search indexing protocols (SERPS) to downgrade black hat method using sites, but is losing the war while taking out innocent bystanders. They also are in the business to make money and favor branded economic sites over “mom and pop” small businesses now. Reading the pain going on for some of them and how some are turning to “the dark side” to survive, I have to wonder if the mess can be resolved in any good way at all.

My posts on spam, especially of the referral type on Blogger, came about due to the lack of information about the links showing up in my stats. They are a public service endeavor which has led me to learn about things I had no clue about in the financial ecosystem of Web advertising and search results. I’ll never be an expert, but from the amount of hits the posts have gotten at least some information got relayed to those who needed it.

So these public service announcements will continue though they annoy me to write.

Health 3-24-2013

Energy levels have been low, even for me, this past week. Pain has been much higher and spread throughout the body with joints being the problem. It has been very strange because the body is loose which means I can pop the bad spots in my back for temporary relief – that’s the opposite of how things normally are. Still, the relief is much shorter than usual.

I’ve also had to take long naps every day on top of sleeping longer than usual. The body acts like it is under attack from something, but nothing is apparent. Headaches of varying intensity have occurred nearly every day. Dizziness has also been present.

Looking at the symptoms, it reminds me of Lyme Disease minus the rashes and paralysis.

Crossword puzzles and Audiosurf both indicate I’m in normal alertness parameters so I don’t have a clue as to what’s going on.

A Couple of Pests

While perusing the news, I ran across two articles about invaders. One is an invader of the blood stream and the other of trees. Both are connected to me oddly enough, so they caught my interest.

Lyme Disease’s bacterium has been found to be far more unusual than thought. It is the first living organism to be discovered that doesn’t live by consuming iron! Instead it apparently uses maganese as a substitute and that explains why it is so hard for the immune system to fight. Tricky things, the microscopic.

Let’s hope that the research is correct and leads to a better treatment of the disease. I did not enjoy my bout of it last year.

Meanwhile, slightly less close to home, the emerald ash borer has entered Houston County with finds in La Crescent. Worry about the insects has been around for years, but they took their time in arriving. I used to carry a card for identifying the insect that got got thrown out during a fit of wallet cleaning. Time to get another one, I suppose.

Just recently I’d been talking to a friend who will be doing a summer internship mapping out the problem in Winona, which is north of La Crescent. The focus of that won’t just be detection, but advising on substitution of different trees to replace the ones being cut down. Interesting stuff, that.

I find myself disliking bugs of all kinds after reading the news today. I wonder why?

Back to working on my next review.

Ill Tidings

Spring has officially arrived though I can’t tell it looking out my window. It is currently seven degrees Farenheit with snow outside and frost on the inner windows of my room. It could be worse.

North Korea cyberattacked South Korea this morning our time and the afternoon their time. Bank and television computer networks were taken down for many hours and some still aren’t operational. What did this mean for the South Korean people? They had to deal with no debit or credit cards working and that includes ATMs. I suspect business to business transactions were also impossible.

Imagine if that happened in the United States.

Of more local concern and by local I mean household, the Subaru started having serious problems overheating Saturday night and Sunday. It is currently in the shop having its engine torn apart for head gasket replacement plus timing and other belts. So financial pain has arrived with spring.

I suppose Saturday was close enough to the Ides of March to qualify, come to think of it.

SWATting Hits a Bigger Name

One of the nastier things being done by people out to harass bloggers and now reporters is making false phone calls that cause a SWAT raid on innocent people. The latest victim is Brian Krebs who is something of a crusader in the Internet security field. More can be found at Ars Technica.

The tactic has moved out of the political arena to the organized crime category if what I’m reading is correct. If the militarization of local police forces didn’t concern me in the past, this sort of thing has me questioning it. In decades past, the image of heavily armed men kicking in doors and hauling people out was something you associated with communist countries and other dictatorships.

If that isn’t a sign of decline, I don’t know what is.

The only thing that can be done about the rise of SWATting is find some kind of way to have local police informed about the potential for false calls for specific people. That only helps those who know they might be SWATted, but I don’t any other thing that can be done other than to introduce training about the practice to local police forces.

Maybe Krebs experience will finally get the irresponsible mainstream media to start talking about the problem. One can only hope.

Ending the Ad Experiment

With the traffic only recovering to around half of what it used to be before December there is no point in continuing to have ads on the blog. I never expected to make any money with them, but the steep decline in page views killed any accumulation of data on ad effectiveness for small sites in my eyes. It had looked like it would be eight years before I'd collect my first payment from AdSense back when the traffic was higher.

Suffice it to say I'm not really impressed with the service and view it as something only for the highest trafficked blogs. The real ad money is in affiliate ads and that would be more work to implement than I care to do for just experimenting. In the end, it turned out to be a very boring experiment that didn't even rise to the level of disappointing.

I did learn more about things such as SERP plus the terrifying creatures Panda and Penguin involved in Google indexing. So it hasn't been a total loss.

There are some on the Net who think that adding ads to their blogs at Blogger decreased their traffic. That seems strange and implausible. If my traffic from Google starts shooting up a month from now I might believe it. It isn't something to hold one's breath over though.

So the blog will be a lot cleaner looking now.

How Many Referral Spammers Are There?

That’s the question on my mind. Yet again faked referral links have shown up in my Blogger stats and yet again it is one I haven’t seen before.

afslotat . net16 . net is the newest one to hit the blog with a tempting link:
afslotat . net16 . net / info / my blog address

It appears to be out of Latvia, but that could be faked too. An attempt was made to load the site in a VM, but failed so I’m very suspicious and advise not clicking the link for any reason.

UPDATED

Another address like it showed up this evening:
radepaha . hs8 . ru / de  /info / my blog address . de

I'm not even going to try to investigate it since it is likely from the same people behind the other.

UPDATED again...

Now I've gotten referral spam from one of the biggest weirdos on the net. escapefrommasachusetts . org is on the loose again after being around as escapefromma . com and this site is dangerous to click on. The latest incarnation of pseudo anarchic drivel is salacious statements about Mitt Romney. A little out of date, that.  DO NOT CLICK!

Yet another UPDATE:

A new variation of the first two spams has shown up and racked up a ridiculous number of hits in one day. It uses the same fake "info" then your blog address in the referral. The new culprit is:

tkdot . com

Kimi ni Todoke Ep. 6: Friends

In one of the most emotional episodes of the series, Sawako takes on the rumor mongers and finds herself in physical danger. Unable to help her, Kazehaya can only wait in frustration for things to come to a resolution. Nothing is more vicious than a pack of teenage girls…

Life is filled with happiness and sadness for you cannot know one without the other. Kimi ni Todoke is at its best showing the ups and downs of trying to grow up through the turbulent years of high school while dealing with the amplified emotions of adolescence. Everything is more intense when you are young with nothing more intense than the hostility of others.

 

A brief flashback to Sawako’s childhood reveals the identity of the girl who gave her the nickname of Sadako. It was the result of an innocent slip of the tongue that often happens to little kids and no malice was meant. Back in the present, malice is clearly intended when our heroine finds herself backed against a wall.

Japan's Tsunami and Earthquake Remembrance Video

For the anniversary of the devastating tsunami that did so much damage to Japan in 2011 a couple of videos have been put up. One of them is utterly beautiful, Blossom. It got to me far more than I expected. Go watch it.

Slippery When Wet

I think we’ve all seen signs with that on them at some time or another. Today I found out just how impossibly slick ice is when it has water running down it. In an attempt to get to church today, I didn’t carry enough speed up the drive way because I was worried about losing control on the wet ice.

So near the top of the drive way I lost all energy and traction at the same time. Yet it was the attempt to back down where things got really hairy. There simply was no way to keep the car straight and luckily for me there was enough snow on the driver’s side to stop the car from rolling down the embankment. No big deal, had this happen before so it can be dealt with.

Then I got out of the car and walked to the back to push it while my father took the wheel. We never got that far because the moment I stepped off the snow onto the ice I went down. Falling is always embarrassing, but it was nothing compared to going down the second time while crawling on my hands and knees.

I had no idea anything could be that slippery despite spending over four decades contending with snow and ice. The driveway was truly frictionless which explains why I didn’t get up it in the first place. After sliding a few times, I made it to a patch free from ice. It was a slow trip down the driveway to the house to figure out what to do next.

A phone call to our neighbor Randy got us some help and ash to lay on the ice. The three of us used that and wood pellets to get the car back down. We also found out the tractor path is blocked by a deep pool of water that the Subaru probably couldn’t clear. That closed off our only other way out.

So much for getting to church.

So I’m watching Ben-Hur and writing this during the intermission. What a year so far and heavy snow is now in the forecast. Sometimes it simply doesn’t pay to leave the house.

Do It Again

You know that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach when you’ve just found a big problem that will require a lot of time and effort to fix? Well, that’s what I’m feeling right now. I just discovered that Windows Live Writer has been shrinking the HD screen captures so that when they are clicked on they are much smaller than they should be.

So now I have to re-edit and re-upload everything for those posts. This is going to take a long time, sigh.

The Last Starfighter (1984) Review

When a young man dreams of escaping his dreary life an unexpected trip to the stars leads to adventure and heroism. Sound familiar? It should for this is a cheesy, formulaic, and derivative movie. Yet it is easy to forgive this due to an excellent cast, endearing characters, and a complete lack of pretention. Combining all of the above with cutting edge effects that changed the industry resulted in one of the best B-movies of the 1980s. UPDATED March 2013 with HD screen captures and Blu-ray details.

These days we are accustomed to seeing photorealistic computer generated images (CGI) in everything from commercials to major motion pictures. It wasn’t always like this and somebody had to pioneer the field. This is the movie that dared to attempt what was then thought impossible. Without The Last Starfighter we would not have had the Lord of the Rings, Pixar, or Marvel superhero movies.

Greeted by a stately symphonic score and a planet that is clearly not Earth, we zoom away from it while the title and credits roll. After going through what appears to be a wormhole in space, the camera pans down to a small trailer park in the hills of California. It’s a run down place that has seen better years, but the park is filled with a variety of people happily living their lives.

How Time Flies

Another year gone and another closer to the grave. My birthday was a low key affair as usual, but I did score some impressive loot thanks to a gift certificate from my sister and cash from the ex-sister-in-law (one of those cases where the ex was kept in the family anyway since we all loved her). Then there was the now traditional event of being treated to snow crab legs which were a particularly good batch at the local Red Lobster.

So my chosen birthday loot is all movies -- surprise, surprise. I also purchased a couple for ridiculously cheap at Target last night:

• Monty Python’s 16 Ton Megaset on DVD – This complete TV series set is long overdue since it is part of the family heritage.
• High and Low on Blu-ray – Kurosawa at his best in a modern setting and a personal favorite just behind Ran and Ikiru.
• The Third Man on Blu-ray – A favorite shared with my late mother it is one of the best Cold War movies and possibly the best. Welles and Cotton together again, ‘nuff said.
• Requiem for a Heavyweight on DVD – Brilliant movie and I believe the first tentative effort at any kind of movie review on the blog. Yes, there will be a full review of this coming.
• Gorgo on Blu-ray – Restored from recently found negatives in a salt mine it is going to be released on the 19th. I’ll have to rewrite the review once I have it and initial word is that it looks great.
• Dr. No on Blu-ray – The only real cinema James Bond in his debut, it should be spectacular if it is as good as the Goldfinger BD.
• The Last Starfighter on Blu-ray – As nice as the DVD I had is, this blows it out of the water. Currently working on rewriting the recent review thanks to this $7.00 purchase.

I was dead tired for the trip out last night, yet managed to survive it. I attribute it to the power of crab legs. Oh and the tastiest meat is not in the claw like most think. It can be found in the largest segment of the arm next to the claw arm. Every time I’ve had crab this has been true.

Rodan (1956) (Review)

aka Sora no daikaijû Radon

Ishiro Honda and his crew from Gojira returned with another giant monster film after the mediocre results from another director on its sequel. More of a mystery movie than its predecessors, Rodan is a very different beast that features a more human driven storyline. You won’t find Godzilla in this movie, but Rodan did go on to costar with the more famous beast in multiple films after his destructive debut.

When the hastily put together Godzilla Raids Again disappointed, Toho came up with a new monster tale that kept the kaiju genre going. Better effects and the use of color injected life into the story about a mutated pteranodon and a group of coal miners. Succeeding at the box office in Japan, Radon winged its way over the Pacific as Rodan in the American edit a few years later. Both edits will be covered in this review, so let’s get going!

The movie opens with colorful credits accompanied by sinister music which is immediately identifiable as being in the same style as Gojira’s. Sure enough Akira Ifukube composed the score and it sets the tone for the entire film. Once the lengthy credits end we are introduced to the main setting of Mount Aso in Japan.

A mining community is starting its day with another shift of workers making their way into the mine. Harsh words exchanged between two miners escalates into a brawl between the two men, Goro and Yoshizo. Having been separated by their coworkers, the fight ends inconclusively before all head deep into the bowels of the earth to search for “black diamond.”

Later at the engineer’s office, we are introduced to our main protagonist, Shigeru Kawamura (Keni Sawara). A discussion of global warming melting the polar ice and endangering the world is interrupted by dire news – one of the tunnels has flooded. This is impossible according to the engineers, but that’s experts for you.

Of course when Shigeru arrives on the scene he finds a tunnel filled with water and further bad news that two miners are missing. I wonder which two? Yep, it’s the feuding ones and only one is found. The fact that Yoshizo is found floating face down and has been killed with something like a very sharp sword is a wee bit suspicious.

Turkey Day in March

Hey, if you can have Christmas in July events this should be allowable, right? Anyway, this was the scene outside the house during the snow storm that dumped a fair amount of inches earlier today.

I first caught side of the flock of wild turkeys outside the kitchen window and by the time I could get the camera ready they had crossed to the west yard. The little parade eventually made its way to a small stand of pine trees for a brief rest.

Given how dirty the window I was shooting out of and the snow still coming down, this was the best pictures that could be hoped for.

The turkeys have been getting bolder this winter, so seeing them around the property has gotten more common. Ah, country living – you never know who will stop by.

Health 3-4-2013

I burned myself out on Saturday to participate in a youth temple trip to the St. Paul Temple. It was worth it to be of service to those who have passed away and it was something the Spirit had prompted me to do. Good thing too, since we would have been one priesthood holder short for the trip.

As a consequence, yesterday was not a day where I was able to get out and about. Though I missed stake conference, I used the opportunity to watch The Ten Commandments on Blu-ray and ponder the importance of Judaism and Christianity in regards to the slow rise of freedom for all men. Ne entries to Mamie's Life were also put up, so the day was not a complete loss.

Healing from the infection and resulting abscess is still going on. It’s winding down and there is considerably less pain now that it no longer is pressing on a large nerve. It will be nice to be completely healed and not have to worry about it anymore. Meanwhile, the sinuses have decided to misbehave since last Wednesday.

You win some, you lose some.

Lord of the Rings, Donnie Darko Style

This is impressive on multiple levels. Now we need WETA to provide the CGI to finish it!

Piracy and Anime

Being the type to delve into how industries operate when I’m interested in their products, I’ve been watching the problems with the anime industry – especially in the United States. Boom and bust cycles are fascinating to observe and the anime here in the States managed to do that in in the space of one decade. So an interview with the former Bandai Entertainment USA director of marketing gives a rare insight to how things actually work. Be warned, there is profanity in the podcast.

As I’m listening to it, the brief mention of how online piracy damaged sales caught my attention. It got me thinking on how a niche industry can be devastated by people stealing the product and never paying for it. Disclaimer: It isn’t right to steal from the big industries like Hollywood or music too. Also, I won’t get into the manga side of things.

Many are the mistakes that have caused companies to fold or retreat from the anime market in the U.S., but the explosion in file sharing coincided with rise and fall in my eyes. Once broadband saturated the country around the middle of the 2000’s, piracy of videos increased. That was also when anime imploded.

Kimi ni Todoke Ep. 5: Resolution

Confusion and despair abounds when Sawako’s attempts to protect her new friends only serves to hurt them more. But even as a timely intervention propels the shy girl toward doing what needs to be done, darker forces rear their ugly heads.

Adolescence is a miserable and confusing time for most of us under the best of circumstances. Trying to understand who you are, what you are becoming, and where you fit in fills far too much time when you are a teen. This goes doubly for girls, for they can be absolutely ruthless at that age while still being incredibly insecure. This episode excels at capturing the distress is causes.

After the rumors running rampant about her new friends were discovered by Sawako, she made the draconian decision to isolate herself from them in the previous episode. Desiring to protect those she has come to cherish, the overly responsible girl puts on a brave face around her parents. Yet going to school and ignoring the others is not as easy as she thought.

Flashbacks to the events in prior episodes leaves her wondering if it all had been a dream in a very bittersweet scene set during a test. Images of fun with Ayane and Chizuru bring a slight smile, but it is when she flashes on Kazehaya’s face that her brave façade begins to crumble. Still not aware of what her feelings really are, it is letting go of him that hurts the most.

Muddling Through

Sometimes life isn’t about clear cut victories or significant progress, but simply about wandering through the vagaries that swirl about you. The patience of Job isn’t an example for just for the disasters of life – it applies to slow times where nothing seems to go completely right too. For me, it is the little things that get under my skin, not crisis level events. Those I can handle.

So it has been the drawn out recovery from the infection, not the severe illness endured while at its peak that has made me a grouch. Actually, my being irritable is usually a sign I’m feeling better, so maybe I shouldn’t whine about my whining. Hmm, exponential whining, what a concept.

Positive things have happened along the way. None of them have been dramatic, but most good things are small anyway. I should list them to smack myself in the face with them:

• Being able to get out and socialize with friends Saturday night even if running late.
• Getting to church the last three Sunday’s despite the pain.
• The Holy Ghost playing the role of teacher and giving me some very interesting insights this weekend.
• Having movies to watch when I was unable to read even light material last week.
• Learning more about my grandparents’ lives through Mamie’s diaries. Our society has lost so much since then that it is tragic.
• Finally sorting, cleaning up, and backing up years worth of files, music, and images on my PC. I can’t believe I forgot to back up all the music purchased from Amazon and Google Play last year!
• The new monitor is finally calibrated and showing me flaws in photos I never saw before. Is that a positive? Depends on what I do with them, I suppose.
• Finally getting The Dark Knight Rises review written after a month of working on it. Writing while sick is not efficient, but it did get done. Eventually.
• B-Movies. Still one of the best ways to deal with being too sick to do anything productive.
• Curry.

I won’t list the bad stuff. Instead some random observations follow.

Brave getting Best Animated Film at the Oscars was surprising to see in the headlines. I only just saw it and unlike the vast majority of Pixar fans think it was their best film. Marketing didn’t do it justice at all and it was the most Miyazaki like of the studio’s offerings. The relationships in the family and the focus on mother/daughter conflicts were something that could easily come out of Studio Ghibli. Must be hate of gingers clouding people’s minds?

2001 on Blu-ray is phenomenal. I’d purchased it over a year ago and forgot I had it, so I popped it in the Samsung player last night. All of my younger friends find it incredibly boring, but it was riveting as always for me. The visual and audio quality is beautiful to say the least. 45 years after being released, it still has better effects than most blockbusters today and hoo boy does it look great in HD.

Speaking of looking great in HD, Viz’s release of the first half of Tiger and Bunny is amazing. The English dub on the first episode was fairly good; can’t comment on later ones since I watched them in Japanese. Between the second set of this and My Neighbor Totoro plus Howl’s Moving Castle coming out on Blu-ray in May, that month is going to hurt my wallet.

Gorgo is coming out the middle of March on BD too, so I am in a quandary about replacing the DVD I only got in the past six months. While a preorder is tempting, if the color shift and over sharpening is still there it won’t be worth it even if it is higher def.

Time to get back to image sorting and working on the next review.