Archive for November, 2008
Dr House: Is A Change is a’Comin?
Nov 26th
Last night’s episode of House, M.D. made little sense. Why would Dr. House, near the end of the show, give the patient back his gun? Why not just diagnose him but say he has the gun? Then something interesting happened. The guy almost killed Thirteen, and for a moment, House looked stunned. And I thought, “Oh God, please let this be it.”
What is it? It is the moment I’ve been waiting for. The moment when House realizes his inane behavior is getting unrealistic and unbearable. The House character is getting boring to me because he shows no growth whatsoever, never learns any lessons. He’s just a miserable old sack. And the show was losing steam, until last night, because it’s become so formulaic that Cracked magazine took a well-deserved swing at it.
So, I’m hoping that last night, as the SWAT team blew away the walls of the CAT scan room and House, for a moment, was unsure whether or not his plan had backfired; as House began to understand that his silly actions may have led to Thirteen’s unnecessary death; as House suddenly understood (I think) that he had behaved like an idiot, that maybe we have the catalyst for the first real growth of the character. I wish – I wish so much – that perhaps the character would show some emotional reaction to the fact that he endangered not just others’ lives, but others’ lives quite recklessly.
House shouldn’t suddenly become a softie, and he shouldn’t suddenly be a new character, but the same way you drive a little slower for awhile after you think you might be getting a ticket when you pass a cop, he ought to have a little bit of extra thought about his actions, a pause before acting like the cold moron he normally is. Because any human would, after an event like that.
Unfortunately, I don’t expect it. I think next Tuesday will open credits on the same old House. Too bad.
Check This Out: The Foo Fighters’ The Colour and The Shape
Nov 26th
1997’s The Colour and the Shape
Quite the contrary: The Colour and The Shape remains The Foo Fighters’ masterpiece, despite many subsequent hits. The Colour and The Shape proved that Dave Grohl could exist in a post-Nirvana band with its own identity.
The Colour and The Shape
So Lame
Nov 24th
Dr Pepper needs a new web host. I tried getting through for several hours minutes on Sunday to no avail. So the offer was extended, and now I get this, crappy availability on a crappy Windows server. Lame!
Check This Out: Drivin’ N’ Cryin’s Fly Me Courageous
Nov 24th
Every so often, I’m going to post an album recommendation. I have lots of “favorite” albums, but I’m going to share a few that I find especially good. Today brings an album that really captures the flavor of rock in the early 1990s.
In the early 90s, Guns N’ Roses had successfully killed off hair metal in favor of accessible heavy metal. That changed when the Use Your Illusion albums came out – as “rock” more than metal – and rock softened up a little. Bands like Mr. Big and Firehouse were suddenly relevant. A little known Southern band who had been around since the mid-80s dropped into the scene with a fantastic album called “Fly Me Courageous.”
Fly Me Courageous features several great songs besides the title track which became a successful single, most notably “Let’s Go Dancing.” Other songs such as “For You,” “Look What You’ve Done to Your Brother,” and “Around the Block Again” are really great songs that are a throwback to that period in rock music. While it certainly won’t feel like current music, it will certainly prove to be a successful demonstration of just good, catchy song writing.
Fly Me Courageous
Install From Time Machine
Nov 19th
I got my new iMac in late last week – the 24″ 3.06 Ghz aluminum one with 4GB RAM – and it *is* sweet. I’ve set up a Mac fresh, I’ve set up a machine using the Migration Assistant, and I’ve used target disk mode, but I’ve not yet had the chance to rebuild from a time machine backup. Did it work?
Suffice it to say it was incredible. Using just my external hard drive, it read my backup, asked me what I wanted to restore (it found 4 things: Users, Network Settings, Applications, and “Files and Folders”). I checked them all. After a few simple questions, it told me that it would take just shy of 4 hours to complete. Surprisingly, it was done a scant 150 minutes later. When I booted up, I was amazed. Not only did everything come over, it was almost as if it was my exact machine. Barely a noticeable difference, save speed and size.
A few things slipped by, for example, I had changed /System/Library/CoreServices/DefaultDesktop.jpg to a custom image, which it did not preserve. I had changed some system icons, and those new icons did not preseve, but, for example, my external time machine drive had a custom icon, and it did remain. The new install also required many updates I had already applied to my old OS X installation.
Time Machine Restore: Incroyable!
All in all, though, I’ve never seen a smoother or faster migration. The power of UNIX – everything living in predictable directories and segregated into “Library” folders, means that both backing up and restoring have a power that the Windows Registry simply can’t match. In fact, in wading through all of this, it has a severe handicap when it comes to system migration due to the fact that data is mashed into so many inconsistent places.
Apple has pissed me off quite a bit recently. But – oh boy! – did they re-energize me with this one!
Update: worth noting, here is a great article on restoring from a time machine backup.
SHOCKER!
Nov 14th
Someone please explain this to me.
It was actually hosted on whitehouse.gov, so this is not a Photoshop. How did someone convince them this was for real?
Stop Dicking Around
Nov 11th
Apple needs to stop dicking around with these updates. Stop adding in things that are completely superfluous, and focus on the core functions: phone, SMS, email. Give us individual SMS timestamps and deleting, a unified email inbox, lock screen email notifications, more reliable email fetch, user profiles (for sounds and network settings), etc.
CrzyCanuck72, on forums.macrumors.com, discussing iPhone firmware version 2.2
Apple Support
Nov 10th
Today is NOT my day when it comes to Apple products. I bought Mobile Me, the ridciulously overpriced service Apple offers, specificaly for its photo album capabilities, but I cannot activate it. Although I am logged into iTunes using my AppleID, and I am registered with my iPhone, AppleTV, etc, for me.com, it says there is no such user. So I figured that I could very quickly get this fixed by calling 1-800-MY-APPLE.
But Apple offers no phone support for MobileMe. When you dial and tell the comoputer you want to discuss “Mobile Me”, it says “Our support is now available online at me.com/help. Thank you. Goodbye.” Then it promptly hangs up on you. Fail.
My solution? Call and just ram through any menu prompt until I get to an operator and force them to help me. Apple support is generally pretty decent, but aside from the fact that Mobile Me is priced about 5 times too high, they have the audacity to provide no real manner of support other than the massively un-realtime web.
Boo, Apple, boo! You’ve let me down a lot recently. I hope my new iMac makes me happy, or it may be my last Apple product (for awhile, at least).
Hindsight is 20/20
Nov 24th
Posted by Adam S in Funny
Comments
Here’s a quick clip to remind everyone that when you treat those with opposing views with obnoxious contempt, you can almost certainly count on looking like at a douche at some point. Watch everyone laugh at Peter Schiff who very accurately predicts events back in 2006. Great stuff.