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.