9:54 AM
Screenshots from the DVD version of The Fellowship of the Ring at 480p compared to a 1080i HDTV broadcast of the same film show a staggering and dramatic difference.
Mousing over any of the photos on that page will show you the HD feed. Clicking any of them will show you the full-size blowups. Aragorn's beard in the HD version of shot 11 is so crisp and clear that it pretty much looks like a photograph.
9:19 PM
For a long time now the LitterMaid has been a cat owner's only option for automatic litter box cleaning. Unfortunately it's a piece of crap.
It's got this one big scooper that slides across the box and scoops any solid matter into a sealed storage container. The problem is that the motor is barely strong enough to pull the scoop all the way across, and the scoop itself usually gets gunked up with poo and pee and needs to be cleaned by hand every so often.
Incompetence breeds competition, and soon the CatGenie will see the light of day. Details are sparse, however it somehow hooks up to your toilet in two locations - one to provide it with water and another to flush the poop into your toilet. It scoops the poop similar to the LitterMaid, but it then uses water to somehow wash the scoop and its own special washable, reusable litter.
God only knows if it'll work or not, but if you sign up to get on their waiting list (no obligation to buy) before Tuesday, you'll have the option of buying one for $200 - they'll retail for $300.
No game should ever let you finish it when the game's progress bar is at 52%. That's just a basic rule that's been around since...well, forever. It seems like common sense, you know?
Here I was thinking I had hours and hours more playtime ahead of me - twice as much game as I had already played - and boom! End of game.
Turns out the remaining 48% are these stupid optional time trials that force you to replay parts of the game over and over. Wow, I really can't wait to replay the exact same game that I just spent a month to finish a second time just to get 100% and unlock some lame-ass movie. Thanks, Sucker Punch!
At least when other games pull this crapola they let you finish above a more reasonable number, like 90%. Castlevania even let you explore the unlockables after you finished the game and extended the counter to something crazy high like 180%. Remember that?
What is wrong with people?
Aside from that glaring cock-up and the lack of support for a memory card in slot 2, I'd have to say that Sly 3 was a pretty fun little platformer.
Gonna tackle Psychonauts next. That ought to keep me busy until Rogue Galaxy hits the US.
6:44 PM
In my search to find other vocoder bands this evening, I came across SpaceSynth.net.
SpaceSynth is 80s-sounding synth music with a peppy upbeat flavor. It sounds like a lot of what I heard in PC and Amiga demos when I was a kid. Interestingly enough, SpaceSynth is nowhere to be found in Ishkur's famous guide.
Go download Through The Space by Galaxion and you'll get a pretty good feel for the genre.
And yes, a few SS artists use vocoders. Bless them! Even if science finally figures out how to make robots sing someday, vocoders will still sound better. Or at least cooler, anyway.
12:46 PM
Wowie! I just found out about this 80s band called Newcleus.
They only released two albums in the early 80s but there's some good stuff there! They did a lot of old-school rap which is corny and not really something I'm into...but they also did a lot of early instrumental electro with a liberal use of vocoders and that shit is SWEET.
Wanna know why we have an F rating with the BBB? Because the Better Business Bureau is a racket, and you have to be a paying member of the BBB to even reply to complaints filed against you.
Valentine's Day dinner at Storytellers Cafe last night.
I love that my crappy low-res cameraphone actually has a sepia setting.
I don't collect Disney pressed pennies, but there's a lot of people out there who do. This one has been causing a stir lately. See if you can figure out why:
Yes, Chip appears to have a cock'n'balls.
Well, not really. It would take a special kind of nerd to make that connection but it has been made and the penny collectors are going "nuts" about it. Ho ho! Hilarious. And also pathetic!
This guy sums up the situation pretty well, and chalks it up to a computer error in the digital-to-die press conversion, which seems plausible. He's also overreacting a bit by warning children to stay away from the photo and covering the glitch up with a fig leaf, but I guess penny collectors are a special breed of conservative. Who knew?
Since we were in the area last night I made it my mission to check out the penny machine and sure enough it was there, onstage for anyone to use.
$3.06 later and I had six of my own. You never know!
Rare, prototype, and 'error' pennies have allegedly sold for hundreds and thousands of dollars in the past (I'm pretty sure this never happens) but judging by how long this one's been onstage I doubt they have any plans to remove it. But hey, these six pennies might turn out to be my kid's college fund someday.
10:49 AM
I got an iPod Nano around Christmas and I've been using it a lot more than I thought I would. I don't really listen to music all that much, but I have been listening to podcasts on my way to and from work.
9:18 AM Zillow.com is an awesome tool for determining the value of a piece of property at any given time. Using their own top-secret "Zestimate" algorithm it looks at things like square footage, recent comps in the area, real estate growth in the zip code, and god knows what else to come up with a number that's mathematically pretty close to the present-day market value of a home.
Zillow is great for sellers, but paired up with Trulia.com, Zillow can be even aweseomer for buyers.
I find it hard to believe that California Adventure opened five years agotoday.
When I walked through the park on opening day I couldn't believe how empty it was. The soft-opening preview days leading up to February 8th, 2001 were jam-packed and full of people! Where had everybody gone? Opening day was a ghost town.
It's sad how little has changed since then!
Even as Disneyland proper broke its own fifty years of attendance records in 2005, California Adventure's confused theming, lack of high-budget e-ticket attractions, and overall cheapness are still working hard to keep the crowds away in large numbers.
The people responsible for DCA have mostly all left or have been pushed out of the company by now. Cost-cutting impresario Paul Pressler left shortly after the park opened to lackluster attendance. Then-Disneyland Resort president Cynthia Hariss went with him a few months later. Barry Braverman was given his walking papers from WDI last month. And we all know what happened to Michael Eisner. Rumor has it the California theme was his idea to begin with.
Even Marty Sklar, the only remaining full-time Disney employee to have worked directly alongside Walt Disney is considered by many to have succumbed to the Sirens' call of reduced budgets and outsourced attractions development. His retirement is not far off.
Little by little things are slowly starting to turn around at DCA. A multi-phase beautification project is currently underway and the park has already gotten some new attractions. CEO Bob Iger has committed to spend more money on Disney's parks, and an e-ticket for Pixar's "Cars" is in the early stages of development for the Hollywood backlot. Pixar's John Lassetter is a huge Disneyland fan and as of last week now has creative control over pretty much everything WDI does from this point on.
The planets are aligning for great things ahead, so let's hope that five years from now DCA in its current state will be just a laughable memory!
9:14 AM
I decided to leave work yesterday morning to go get my house ready for possible burnination. The drive home was surreal. The sun was a distant red circle in the sky and it smelled like I had walked into the pit of a charcoal grill. I saw schools being evacuated, roads being closed off, and news vans driving through my neighborhood.
Luckily we live right on the border of the mandatory and voluntary evacuation areas, so we never had to get up and go. Our friends down the street were not so lucky, however! I at least had time to gather up important documents, water, pet food, and a couple clothes just in case we needed to hightail it outta there.
The front pages of the city of Anaheim and city of Orange are posting updates on road closures, and I might have to go home again if the wind shifts and the evacuation areas stretch westward a block or two.
Listening to the fire teams on a scanner is enough to make you crazy. "Oh god it's crossing Santiago peak! Where the fuck is Santiago peak!" (That's me not them.)
The Orange County trunked radio fleetmap is absolutely ridiculous but not undeceipherable. With a little patience I was able to get everything programmed into my BC246T which showed its true colors and performed like a champ.
So! The house is safe for now. But we shall see how long that lasts.
9:45 AM
There's a pretty slim chance that when today's over I won't have a house to go back to. Mandatory evacuations are now taking place for houses just five minutes away from mine. I wonder if I should head home...
The attraction will feature the addition of two of Hollywood's most infamous buccaneers, Captain Jack Sparrow and his nemesis Barbossa. Joining the wildest crew that ever sacked the Spanish Main, Captain Jack and Barbossa add an exciting new twist to the attraction's original storyline as they race to be the first to claim a cache of plundered treasure.
When you mess with the classics you walk a fine line. We'll see how this goes.
9:23 AM
When I was a little kid I was never afraid of the dark. That all changed the day I saw The Dark Crystal.
24 years later I'm older, wiser, and the movie doesn't scare me (as much) anymore! I'm was kind of excited this morning to learn that there's a sequel in the works. Awesome.
I think I'm at a point in my life where I can watch skeksis drain the life essence out of pod people without being traumatized for the next five years. We'll see though.
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