bits for 8/6 ought 8

8/6/2008

imageHere’s what’s been going on in MengaLand…

Right-side reading pane the way to go if using Hotmail.

Just to test it out I purposely set the reading pane to the right side in my Hotmail (see pic). I found that this is actually most most efficient way to have the mail set up.

Having the pane on the right is nothing new as it’s been a feature in e-mail clients for many years. But having it in a web-based version of e-mail is still something relatively new, and I gotta say.. I like it.

What makes a right-side reading pane better now compared to then is I’ve got a much higher screen resolution so it doesn’t cut off any of the body of the message.

Give it a try, you may like it.. that is unless you’re using Gmail and forced to use that threaded bullshit. :-)

Forwarded mail = spam.

I was getting around 7 to 15 spams a day (which is miraculously low) via my Hotmail but I finally discovered why I was even getting spam at all - forwarded e-mail. I have a few other old e-mail accounts that I purposely had forwarding mail to my primary account. When I inspected the spam coming in I noticed it would always be addressed to one of those forwarding addresses. A-ha. When I stopped the forwards, the spam almost stopped cold. I now get maybe 1 to 2 spams a day now. Not perfect but darn close. :-)

BuickFreeSpirit.com mentioned (again) in eBay auction.

It would seem that anyone selling a ‘75 Free Spirit Buick pace car always links to BuickFreeSpirit.com. Hey, I’m not complaining. :-)

However.. what the people who post these cars on eBay don’t know is that I sometimes get e-mail directly from prospective buyers to ask my opinion on the auction car and whether it’s worth buying or not.

In the latest e-mail I received about an auction I was given a link and I checked it out. The car is a complete hack job. Nice on the outside, a nightmare under the hood (and under the rest of the car). It was just bad news all around. Granted, the guy wasn’t asking much for it. The current bid was around $2500 with a “reserve not met” meaning he probably wants at least $4000.

The problem is that the car can never be authentic because the engine was swapped out. No chance of ever having matching numbers. As a collector’s item it’s worthless.

Yeah, I feel sorry for the seller but hey.. collectors are a picky bunch - myself included. Yes, the seller is being very honest with his eBay auction but sorry to say it’s only worth $3000 at best - assuming it’s not too much of a hack job underneath (which it is).

I’m sure someone will pick up the car - as long as they’re comfortable with the fact it will never be truly authentic and have a lot of cash to throw at it to un-do all the “upgrades” done to it.

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geeky crapola for 8/4/2008

8/4/2008

instant messaging

I’ve discovered the only instant messenger I truly give a shit about is AIM. At the present time I’m of the opinion that if someone wants to contact me via IM and doesn’t use AIM, I’m not going to use another service just for them.

What I’m using now is AIM Lite. It only does AIM. It’s tiny, free and awesome.

As far as those who don’t use AIM, they can send an e-mail to me or Twitter me.

twitter

Speaking of Twitter, I’ve been using twhirl and seriously dig it. This is the app that got me using that microblogging service again. It’s good. Real good.

Although I have no proof of this, it would appear that many people prefer Twitter as a means of instant messaging (even though it’s not truly instant) rather than IM itself.

e-mail

Even though the Windows Live Mail e-mail client is really, really good - ever since the full version of Hotmail became supported in Firefox 3 I’ve been using that and nothing else. Being that I do pay for Hotmail (yes I did flip over 20 bucks for a year’s subscription) I don’t see any ads. When you do that Hotmail is lightning quick.

document stuff

Still using OpenOffice. I don’t even have Microsoft Office installed on my box and don’t see any reason to install it. There is no advantage to having it anymore. I even use the native ODT file format instead of DOC (I’m not using MS Office so why bother?)

blogging

My mainstay blogging tool is still Windows Live Writer. It’s like a miniature document editor and it’s got awesome quick image editing tools in it that beats the crap out of anything WordPress has with its editor.

photo stuff

All my photos are on Flickr and have been for a little while now. I actually like it much better than hosting images myself. Yes, I flipped over some cash for a year’s subscription so I can upload as much as I want. I don’t know if I’ll bother to renew the subscription after the year but at least I know when it does expire my photos will still be there (very important).

computer stuff

My box is still the same box from last year, save for the fact there’s a new video card in it. She runs good. A plain ol’ Intel Core Duo 1.8GHz with 2GB RAM and Windows XP Service Pack 3.

I thought about moving to Vista but said “fuck that” and am going to stay with XP until Windows 7 is released. By that point I’ll probably just outright buy a new computer as it won’t appear until late ‘09/early 2010.

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Here it comes…

8/3/2008

Here it comes...

This is what a torrential storm in Tampa Florida looks like when you’re about 1 mile away from driving directly into it. See super-huge version for a better idea of what this looks like.

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his wrath undoes the wicked

8/3/2008

imageI scratched off another movie off my list I’ve been meaning to buy for a while, Dragonheart. This is one of the very few movies I know of that is 100% flawless. There are absolutely no mistakes in this film and to be honest I’m surprised it’s not better known.

Normally when it comes to fantasy films there’s always some glaring error (or two or ten) when watching it. Not so with this one. The story works. The effects are spot-on. The soundtrack perfectly matches the scenes. There are no mismatched edits. Heck, even the color is right throughout.

Even if you specifically looked in the goofs section for this film you still wouldn’t see them in the movie. (And by the way the goofs for this movie is very, very short compared to other films.)

Why do I like this movie so much?

The purpose of a fantasy flick is to get immersed in the fantasy and believe the story being told is real. As far as Dragonheart goes, it nails it. The movie is simply done right. The pace is right on, you can follow it easily and well, you get the idea.

My only fear is that there is a 2nd movie included on the disc, Dragonheart: A New Beginning. I am duly convinced this flick sucks and I haven’t even watched it yet. While considered a “worthy sequel”, I still don’t know if I want to watch it or not.. it may ruin the win that is Dragonheart.

For example, I’ve seen the original Matrix movie but haven’t seen the sequel or the movie after that - on purpose. I’ve heard from many that the sequels are absolutely eff’ing terrible; I absolutely do not want to ruin the awesomeness that is the original Matrix. So I haven’t watched any of the others and never will.

Maybe the 2nd flick won’t be so bad. I dunno. Then again it might. I guess it depends how brave I feel. :-)

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i am the maker of rules

8/2/2008

The title of this bloggo is a lyric from a song I really like.

Speaking musically I haven’t done much in several months. Yeah I’ve done a few things here and there but nothing spectacular. More or less I’ve been trying to decide what to release next. Should it be synth? Classical? Rock? Metal? No clue. One of these days (hopefully someday soon) I’ll decide exactly what I want to do musically and just do it.

Something I said years ago (don’t know if on this blog or not) is that music revolves in cycles. That means whatever was popular then will be popular again in one form or another. As it turns out there are a few synthpop artists who have been breaking ground. This is an offshoot of new wave. It’s all the stuff that was popular in the early 80s that seems to be resurfacing now.

I checked out the Billboard top 10 right now and yeah, the scene is terrible at the moment. Lots of over-processed garbage with no feeling to with at all. It’s definitely ripe for new wave and synthpop to make a splash.

The deal with new wave and synthpop is that there’s a lot of “let’s be a fool and not care” attitude. Generally speaking it’s fun music and people really need that right now.

I’d say the best part about these styles is that it totally embodies the “wolf in sheep’s clothing” thing. What that means musically is that usually with a song of this style, the lyrical content is odd/weird but wrapped in a happy poppy sound. A classic example of this is 867-5309 (Jenny). If you read the lyrics, the song (on the surface) appears to be about a prostitute or some ex-boyfriend who wrote a number on a wall that a bunch of guys call. But then you hear the song and it sounds just like a normal pop song.

Another one is Little Girls by Oingo Boingo. That song is just flat-out messed up. See the video on that link and you’ll understand exactly why.

I’d never write a song like Little Girls, but the fact it got recorded and got airplay and got on MTV says something. It says that if you can write a catchy song you can pretty much get away with anything.

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