Bear is Driving! 2008-04-02T05:08:39Z ditto. tag:www.bearsdriving.com,2008:/blog//1 Movable Type Copyright (c) 2008, pat Two Thousands and Seven Pennies. 2008-04-02T05:08:39Z 2008-04-02T04:55:31Z tag:www.bearsdriving.com,2008:/blog//1.150 2008-04-02T04:55:31Z April Fools! My moving-going in 2007 was way above 2005 and 2006, and a hair above 2004 when I started keeping track of such silly things. 36 flicks, all told (300, 1408, An Unreasonable Man, Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon... pat Big Screen April Fools!

My moving-going in 2007 was way above 2005 and 2006, and a hair above 2004 when I started keeping track of such silly things. 36 flicks, all told (300, 1408, An Unreasonable Man, Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters, Beowolf, Blades of Glory, Blood Diamond, Bourne Ultimatium, Breach, Charlie Wilson's War, Darjeeling Limited, Death at a Funeral, Disturbia, Evan Almighty, Helvetica, Hot Fuzz, I Am Legend, Into the Wild, Juno, The King of Kong, Knocked Up, Live Free or Die Hard, The Lives of Others, The Namesake, No Country for Old Men, Paprika, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Ratatouille, Rescue Dawn, Sicko, The Simpsons Movie, Spider-Man 3, Superbad, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, There Will Be Blood, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story). The increased outings were probably partially due to there being a lot of good movies out, and partially due to me sneaking into a lot more films since I've moved to New York (hey, at $12 a pop, it's almost like they want you to).

Anywho, a quick rundown of the year before getting on with the show...

I saw Zodiac on DVD, and it was good, but I probably wouldn't have put it on this list... despite my love for Fincher flicks.

I didn't see No End in Sight or Taxi To The Darkside, but I did see Sicko, and I was unimpressed.

I did not see Pan's Labriynth or The Host, but I did see I Am Legend. And while I wish it were on here, I just can't do it... the bad CGI bad guys were just bad. In a bad way. Not in a bad way.

I feel bad that I'm leaving out "good" movies like The Lives of Others and Into The Wild in exchange for a bunch of Apatow, but, well, that's where we are as a society.

Likewise, I feel bad leaving out Wes Andersony goodness in the form of The Darjeeling Limited, but, well... eh.

I also feel bad leaving out Hot Fuzz, but it was no Shawn of the Dead. It does make me want to see Point Break again, though. And Point Break Live!

Of the Best Picture/Best Director Nominees (they're almost one in the same), I've seen 3 of the 6... although I doubt Michael Clayton, Atonement or The Diving Bell and The Butterfly would have made the cut anyway.

As for worst movie of the year, it was a close race between Evan Almighty, Spider-Man 3 and Beowolf. (Interestingly, I saw all three at the Lincoln Square Cinema on 68th... hmm.) None of them were particularly bad per-se, but I had expectations for each, and none of them lived up to those expectations. That said, I think I'm going to have to give it to Evan Almighty. Spider-Man 3 was entertaining, and I saw Beowolf (in IMAX 3D!) for free, so it could have been worse. Evan Almighty was just bad... and to top it off, the only reason I saw it was because I couldn't sneak into Sicko.

Finally, I'd also like to point out that Sweeney Todd gets the honorary 11 spot, since it was pretty awesome, but just not quite there. Sorry Megan.

Anyway, to the list:

#10: No Country For Old Men - Mostly on here so Javier Bardem scares the shit out of me and if he got word that I didn't put him on my top ten list he'd blow out my brains with compressed air. I think that's fair, don't you? The Coen Brothers are in a dark place, man. Check out The New York Times article about the music (or lack thereof); it's pretty spot on.

#9: The Bourne Ultimatum - I'm hoping this wraps up Herr Bourne's story. It made a pant-load of money, however, so I'm sure they'll bring him back at some point.

#8: There Will Be Blood - Or, as I like to call it: "White Dudes: Doing Crazy Shit For Oil Since 1898." Or, alternatively "White Dudes: Doing Crazy Shit for Jesus Since 1898." Either works. Seriously, though, good stuff. As much as I love the Coen Brothers, I disagree with the Academy, and I think this was the better film between it and No Country For Old Men. Despite the awful music. (And despite not enough Paul F. Tompkins.)

#7: Superbad - More like Supergood! Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all night. Here we have both Michael Cera and Jonah Hill making their first of two appearances on this list. I wish high school was more like this when I was growing up. In actuality I suppose it was, I just wasn't a part of all of these hijinks and shenanigans. I was too busy being a nerd. Glad I fixed that in college. Although I didn't get into Dartmouth. Goddammit.

#6: Knocked Up - Seth Rogan was probably my favorite part about The 40 Year-Old Virgin, a Judd Apatow saw that and said "I'm going to make a movie based entirely around Seth Rogan." Thanks, Judd. But also, like The 40 Year-Old Virgin, the main character's friends pretty much steal the show. And I mean "friends" literally, since they're all pretty much playing themselves (to the point where their characters' names are the actors' names).

#5: Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story - Pre-heat your oven, grease up your Walk The Line pan, put in one part Naked Gun, another part This is Spinal Tap, throw in some Apatow, sprinkle on some excellent cameos, add a pinch of Tim Meadows and wrap it all in John C. Reilly. Cook for 96 minutes and serve. There you have Walk Hard. If only for Tim Meadows. And a lot of sinks. Oh, and entirely too much full frontal male nudity. Yet simultaneously not enough. Weird. The unrated DVD (which is inevitable) is going to be unbearable.

#4: The Namesake - I love me some Kumar. Err, Taj. Err, Kal Penn.

#3: Ratatouille - Fucking Pixar. They just can't be stopped. They made a movie about a rat who wants to be a chef in Paris into a phenomenal film. Wha? After this and Cars, I've just given up... they're an unstoppable menace. Even Disney knows it. Prediction: after Wall•E, their next movie will be about a group of sentient boulder people who adopt a orphan meerkat and teach him the ancient art of origami. It will gross 800 million dollars.

#2: Juno - About five minutes into Juno you start asking yourself whether you can put up with an hour and a half of teenage girls saying "honest to blog?" and other bullshit. By about the 10 minute mark though, the film has already won you over and you just sit back and enjoy it. J.K. Simmons as always, represent.

#1: The King of Kong - "You're the best! / Around!" King of Kong is such a good movie it hurts. If you don't know what it is, let me give you the one sentence summary from the website, because the summary itself is genius:

King of Kong Follows a middle school science teacher as he battles a hot sauce mogul for the Guinness World Record on the arcade classic Donkey Kong.

It's really excellent. I saw it at the Tribeca Film Festival and it was one of the best movie-going experiences of my life; the crowd really got into it... they laughed, the booed, they cheered, they loved it. I then saw it again at its official New York premiere and met the director, the producer and on of the stars, Steve Wiebe... also awesome (Steve signed a Donkey Kong cartridge for me "I've never signed a cartridge for someone before" he said). Then I saw it a third time in Times Square, after which I snuck into two other films... but really, I should have just watched King of Kong three more times. It's just that good. And it's a travesty that it wasn't nominated for Best Documentary. (Maybe it was submitted for best picture... because it should have been.)

It's worth noting the film does have its detractors, but that just makes the whole thing more interesting to me. I say see the movie, do some reading, and decide for yourself what the real story is. Regardless, it's the most entertaining movie about competitive Donkey Kong playing you're bound to see. I promise you that.

]]> Blood, Sweat, and De Beers 2007-04-02T07:05:40Z 2007-04-02T06:53:46Z tag:www.bearsdriving.com,2007:/blog//1.149 2007-04-02T06:53:46Z Not gonna lie, I'm pretty proud of that title. If I were a film critic, that would have been my headline for my "Blood Diamond" review back in December. As it stands though, it's a headline for three movies now:... pat Big Screen Not gonna lie, I'm pretty proud of that title. If I were a film critic, that would have been my headline for my "Blood Diamond" review back in December. As it stands though, it's a headline for three movies now:

  • "Blood" being Spartans dying left and right.
  • "Sweat" being Ralph Nader.
  • And "De Beers" being the African diamond trade.

For those of you not hip to my jive, that would be "300," "An Unreasonable Man" and "Blood Diamond" respectively. I also just saw "Breach," "The Namesake" and "Blades of Glory," but I couldn't figure out how to work those into the title.

Anyway, some movie blurbs:

Blood Diamond: Pretty by the books sort of semi-docu-drama-based-on-a-true-story kinda flick. No twists, no turns, just some action and a whole lotta guilt towards all you ladies with those rocks on yo fingers. Leonardo DiCaprio plays it all "I just care about diamonds" and then redeems himself in the end. Blah blah blah. And Jennifer Connelly is still hot.

Breach: Even more by the books than "Blood Diamond" and even more based on a true story. Ryan Phillippe plays rookie FBI agent assigned to take down Chris Cooper's character who is a threat to national security. Nothing particularly noteworthy about the flick, it accomplishes what it sets out to do, and that's about it. But hey, at least you get some Dennis Haysberty goodness out of the deal.

An Unreasonable Man: I saw this in theaters the same weekend I saw "An Inconvienent Truth" on DVD. Made for a pretty stellar weekend of feeling bad for myself, I must say. Two movies, two failed runs at the presidency. (Well, four actually... stupid Nader.) Point is, this was a pretty in depth look at the life and times of Ralph. You get his early childhood (and a great story about his mother meeting up with Bush's grandfather), all the way up to the present. With all of his clashes with big business and appearences on SNL in between (this is true). Hancock, get downloading...

The Namesake: The current front-runner for my favorite film of this year. I do love me some Kal Penn, and after watching this I love him even more. Apparently he can do serious as well he can do stoner... and I think we all know he does stoner pretty well. It's not just Kal Penn's movie though, which was interesting... he doesn't even show up until like 45 minutes in. The story is really about the Ganguli family moving from Calcutta to New York City in the late 70's, and then their how their lives continue to present day. I dare say this movie encompasses "blood, sweat and tears" all on its own. Maybe even a little De Beers as well.

300: As far as Frank Miller comic to screen adaptations go, this was no "Sin City," but it was still pretty entertaining. It had something for everyone... dudes running around with their shirts off for the chicks, topless chicks for the dudes, and lots of CG blood for everyone! Yay! Blood orgy! I'm not sure if the "digital backlot" technology has advanced a whole bunch since Sin City came out, or if the stylizedness of ancient Sparta hid the blue screenness better than the City of Sin did... but this was a damn good looking flick. You wouldn't know it was shot in a warehouse in Quebec.

Blades of Glory: The Onion's review had a good formula for making a Will Ferrell comedy:

"All Ferrell needs is a subject fat enough to improvise around— Christmas (Elf), NASCAR (Talladega Nights), local news (Anchorman)— and a plot that won't get in the way."

It's pretty true, besides "Stranger Than Fiction," pretty much every Will Ferrell movie has him swaggering around all high and mighty making completely absurd statements with absolute confidence. And everytime it's hilarious... this time being no exception. The homosexual undertones fortunately don't become overtones in the world of pairs male figure skating, and the plot doesn't get in the way of the jokes. As far as the cast goes, Jon Heder does a pretty good job of repressing his Napoleanness, and Coach does a pretty good of being, uh, Coach. Not enough William Fitchner for my liking, but what are you gonna do. Anyway, yeah, best Will Ferrell comedy since the last one. (Because they're all pretty much the same.)

]]> Limeux. 2007-03-19T05:34:05Z 2007-03-19T04:57:38Z tag:www.bearsdriving.com,2007:/blog//1.148 2007-03-19T04:57:38Z Are you ready for the next chapter in the continuing saga of "The iMac That Would Not Die" (or possibly more appropriately "The iMac That Pat Just Wouldn't Let Rest In Peace")? I didn't think so. After having my fun... pat N.Ü.R.D. Are you ready for the next chapter in the continuing saga of "The iMac That Would Not Die" (or possibly more appropriately "The iMac That Pat Just Wouldn't Let Rest In Peace")?

I didn't think so.

After having my fun with Mac OS X Server 1.0, I decided I would use the iMac for testing purposes... mostly playing around with client/server stuff with my Cube running Mac OS X Server 10.4 (aka the server not from the Clinton administration).

Unable to figure out a way to back up the precious Mac OS X Server 1.0 drive (multiple partitions with weird OpenStep file systems installed...), I decided the best idea was to remove the drive entirely and upgrade the 6GB drive to a semi-respectable 60GB. While I was at it, I also upped the RAM to a semi-respectable 192MB.

With the system specs cranked up all the way to, uh, like, 5, I figured installing OS9 would be a snap. The plan was to get the firmware upgraded so that I could just install OS X via Ethernet. Thus taking my Apple-dweebdom to the next level.

After countless unsuccessful attempts however, my Apple merit badge was torn from my Steve-Jobs-sash and set aflame. OS9 was a no go, and even OS X didn't work. Even after reformatting the drive so that the first partition was less than 8GB (a limitation with the original non-slotloading iMacs), it still didn't work.

Finally, I decided to take the two birds with one stone approach. That being, "hey, let's upgrade my Cube's hard drive, and just throw the old drive with OS X already on it in the iMac." So that's what I did. And it worked. Kind of. Until I rebooted.

Okay, fuck OS X, I'm putting Linux on this bitch.

You know, since OS X was so easy to install, Linux should be a snap, right? No, wait, that doesn't make any sense at all.

Ubuntu seems to be the flavor of the week in the Linux world right now, and just like Mac OS X, there's a desktop version of Ubuntu and a server version of Ubuntu. Since it's Linux though, it has to be more complicated than that (yet still simpler than Windows). Beyond the server and desktop versions, there's also version 6.10 and 6.06 LTS (Long Term Support). There's also 5.10, but we're not going to go into that. Basically 6.06 LTS is more stable but less feature-rich than 6.10. My friend Frank gave me his 6.06 LTS Live CD a while back, so I decided to use that. (This turned out to be a very bad idea.)

Basically a Live CD is a hybrid disc that allows you to boot off the CD and run Linux, or also install it on your hard drive. But now we're getting ahead of ourselves.

While popping in the disc and holding down C got me to a command prompt, once the Ubuntu GUI kicked in, the iMac display kicked off. I could still hear the CD-ROM drive plugging away though, so I knew it was still loading, it's just the display couldn't pick up what the disc was putting down. After a little googling, I found out that this was a common problem among older iMacs and it just required editing a few lines in the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. Oh, is that all? Welcome to Linux, Pat.

So after the disc stopped spinning, I hit control+alt+F1 to drop to the command line. Uh... control+alt+F1? Maybe they keys are mapped weird because this is a Mac keyboard? command+alt+F1? Tried a few more combinations. Nothing. Just for kicks I hooked the keyboard into my TiBook. Wait. Really? Seriously? The control keys are broken? Both of them? Goddammit.

Several days and one keyboard later...

Okay, c... wait... live-powerpc... wait... control+alt+F1... ah, command line. sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf... change some refresh rates, blah blah... ctrl+o ctrl+x sudo killall -HUP gdm Tada! Now we're talking. Install <click>, Language <click>, Time Zone <click>, Create new user <click>, and partition <click>... <click>... <click>. Goddammit. Okay, Ubuntu PPC Forums, here I come.

The next day...

The consensus seems on the Ubuntu Forums to be that old iMacs have a better time with the server installing the version of Ubuntu rather than the desktop version since the installer is less resource intensive (techincally all versions of Ubuntu require at least 256MB of RAM).

So I download all 550MB of server 6.06 LTS and burn it to a disc. Pop it in, hold down C, and... oooh, DOSy! It's ugly, but it works. More or less exactly like the desktop installer only with a DNS or LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) option. Took about an hour to install. And... drumroll...

/pci@80000000/mac-io@10 ... /vmlinux : input/output error.

Godfuckingdammit.

Today...

So I download all 688MB of Ubuntu 6.10 Desktop. Burn that to a CD. Boot. And... <click>, <click>, <click>... partitioning utility that doesn't crash! Yay hooray! Play around... throw in a ext3 partition, HFS, a little FAT32 (Linux is multilingual like that), and... success!

So yes, it only took a week (which is much less time than it took to get the Mac OS Server 1.0 password), but I now have a Lime iMac running Linux on my desk. It's very nice, and probably substantially faster than Tiger would have been. Now if only the sound card would work... and my Mighty Mouse... and Flash... and... and...

Lime iMac: kill me.

]]> The Number 27? 2007-03-12T01:40:59Z 2007-03-12T01:41:30Z tag:www.bearsdriving.com,2007:/blog//1.147 2007-03-12T01:41:30Z With only 3 hours left in my 23 hour day marking the 27th year of my birth (suck it Jim Carrey), I thought I'd do a little recap of the festivities of the past week or so. Like the 25th... pat Huh? With only 3 hours left in my 23 hour day marking the 27th year of my birth (suck it Jim Carrey), I thought I'd do a little recap of the festivities of the past week or so.

Like the 25th birthday a couple years ago, the week was supposed to kick off with a trip to see some Jon Stewart, only this time in the form of The Daily Show. Apparently though, having tickets to The Daily Show doesn't necessarily mean you're going to go see The Daily Show, as Frank and I found out after braving the below-freezing conditions of the West Side Highway on Tuesday. Oh well, now we have VIP tickets for April. Word.

As for the events of the actual (slightly abbreviated) birthday, here are some highlights...

  • Buena-framed goodness from Debra.
  • Grapey goodness from Shelly and Kevin.
  • Bushy goodness from the Hancocks.
  • Getting "Bauer'd" by Hancock on 64th street.
  • Winning at golf for a change on my birthday (albeit of the Wii variety).
  • Losing at poker on my birthday (although, given more time, I'm confident I could have turned it around).

Anyway, yes, all in all a fairly low key birthday, which I'm actually fine with, given how exhausted I've been lately from this goddamn City. Likewise, by virtue of living in the City, there were no trips into the snowy depths of Vermont for mini golf... although it would have been even more hilarious than it has been in years previous, given I'm about twice as far away now and it would be a six hour card ride. Hilarity would have indeed ensued.

To finish the day off, I'm about to go out and watch "The Namesake" starring Kumar (or "Ahmed" if you prefer), with my Indian friend and his white girlfriend. Should be pretty freakishly autobiographical. Only, you know, with slightly more tolerance.

Oh, real quick... I've written a little haiku to celebrate the day:

I'm 27.
Fuck.

Okay, so it's still a work in progress. It's missing a few syllables, but I've got some ideas, I think it'll come to together nicely in the end. Next year. Promise.

]]> Two Thousand and Six Pennies. 2007-03-05T04:44:38Z 2007-03-05T04:37:00Z tag:www.bearsdriving.com,2007:/blog//1.146 2007-03-05T04:37:00Z A top ten movies of 2006 in March of 2007? Really? Hey, that's just how I role. (And, uh, I wanted to wait until after the Oscars were over? Yeah, that's it, yeah... the Oscars.) According to my ticket stubs... pat Big Screen A top ten movies of 2006 in March of 2007? Really? Hey, that's just how I role. (And, uh, I wanted to wait until after the Oscars were over? Yeah, that's it, yeah... the Oscars.)

According to my ticket stubs and blog posts I went to the theater 23 times in 2006. Two of those were retro outings, though (Sleeper and The Nightmare Before Christmas... in 3D!). So that's really only 21 times. And actually, two of those movies I saw twice (Little Miss Sunshine and Superman Returns... in 3D!) So really, I only saw 19 movies this year. That's, for those of you playing at home, down from 37 in 2004, and 25 in 2005. Damn. I blame the pirates! Yar!

So officially more than half the movies I saw in theaters are on my top ten list. Kind of gay, but really, I only try and pay for movies that look good to begin with, so really it's the best of the better to begin with anyway.

That being said, there's always a worst movie of the year. Even amongst the cream of the crop are a few, uh, not so creamy spots? I don't know. Point is, The Illusionist was pretty bad (Stephen Millhauser, represent!), but only on account of it dragging out a predictable twist ending. Caché (Hidden) was apparently good, but I thought it kinda sucked. Even more drawn out than Edward Norton and company. So I guess that leaves Ultraviolet. Like Stealth last year, it may seem a little obvious to be hating on Milla, but this was really bad. Really really bad. It got a 7% on Rotten Tomatoes, and I think even that's a little generous. So that happened.

Anyway, as for the real top ten... per usual there are a lot of movies I didn't see last year. Never found a convienent time to watch An Inconvienent Truth. The Departed never, uh came into dock? I went and saw The Illusionist instead of Half Nelson (true story). And while I kept up to day on all of my Brangelina news on Best Week Ever, I never got around to seeing Babel. So this isn't your be all and end all 2006 list. But it is mine. And since I've already written blurbs about most of these movies, I'm just going to repost what's already been written (in italics). I hope you don't think me lazy. I'll try and make up for it with the four new movies, okay?

And... go!

#10: Little Manhattan - Clearly funded by the New York City Tourism Bureau; if you don't want to move to Manhattan, or at least visit there and spend lots of money after you see this, you're a stronger man than I. Bradley Whitford couldn't even resist. Could you? (Incidentally, since seeing the Little Manhattan, I've found out that it was the first film to sport the official logo of the New York Mayor's Office of Film, Theater, and Broadcasting... so there you go.)

#9: The Science of Sleep - It would be impossible to top "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"— and I think Michel Gondry knows that— but it doesn't stop him from trying... and trying all by himself at that. No Charlie Kaufman helping out this time, and sadly it shows. Actually, I shouldn't say shows, because the film itself is gorgeous... it's the plot that was lacking. Still good though, and extremely charming.

#8: 8 Bit - Number 8, appropriately enough. I mentioned 8 Bit in passing back in Dorkfest in October. I hadn't seen it at that point, but I've seen it twice since... and it's quite good. The movie is sort of two movies in one: one about the general video game art scene and the other about the chiptunes scene. I think the directors' intentions were for the movie to cover the widest breadth of the nerd media scene possible, but really since they spend so much time on the music side of things, it would have almost made more sense to make a whole seperate movie out of that. If you're going to spend 45 minutes on the chiptunes scene and another 45 on everything else put together, why not just go all the way? Also, why no iam8bit love? Still, entertaining and informative, and not really as dumbed down as you'd expect a movie pertaining to a fairly exclusive club would be. Good times. In fact, I think I'll go listen to some Bit Shifter right now.

#7: Stranger Than Fiction - It wanted to be written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Michel Gondry, but, well, it just wasn't. Still better than a solo Michel Gondry outing. Also, I must say I rather like subdued Will Ferrell. Don't get me wrong, I like crazy Will Ferrell, but like Jim Carrey, Ferrell can go both ways and pull it off convincingly. Oh, and Maggie Gyllenhaal is smoking hot.

#6: A Scanner Darkly - It's a total mind trip, and while it certainly could have been done without all the rotoscoping madness, the animation just makes the whole thing that much more surreal. Philip K. Dick is the man, and Richard Linklater has an amazing range as a director. Oh, and Robert Downey Jr. and Woody Harrelson should probably have a sitcom together if they ever need drug money later in life. Comic gold.

#5: Borat (Insert Ridiculously Long Subtitle Here) - Unlike Snakes on a Plane, I feel like Borat lived up to the hype. It was hilarious, if only on a naked-hairy-man-wrestling level. (The DVD comes out Tuesday. It's unrrated. I'm afraid.) But beyond that, it also made for good stories. Like that time I tried to go see it opening night with some friends, but it was sold out, so we drove to Harlem looking for a bootleg, only to find even the bootlegs were sold out. And when we finally did manage to see it on Sunday of opening weekend, it was at a sold out 10pm showing in Queens. Ridiculous. Sacha Baron Cohen... we salute you.

#4: Thank You For Smoking - Aaron Eckhart carries the film, but J.K. Simmons, Rob Lowe, William H. Macy, Maria Bello, David Koechner, and Adam Brody all put in great performances as well. Particularly J.K. Simmons and Rob Lowe. And Sam Elliott as the Marlboro Man. Genius. It had me right from the opening credits.

#3: Little Miss Sunshine - Everything you've heard about this movie is true. First and foremost, it's hilarious. After that, though, it's also perfectly cast. Greg Kinnear is great, as is Steve Carell. Toni Collette and Paul Dano also do a great job, but neither of them have a lot to do. The real standouts for me are Abigail Breslin and Alan Arkin. They're both fantastic, and really set the movie over. (Enough for Alan Arkin to win the Oscar... thank christ... and hey, best screenplay too.)

#2: Wordplay - I'm not sure why I liked it so much... maybe it's because a dude from RPI plays a prominent role in the film, maybe because Bill Clinton and Jon Stewart show up and they're both left-handed, but I think the main reason is because crossword puzzles are awesome. I didn't know this going into the film, but I'm quite certain now.

#1: Children of Men - I'm a sick bastard, I know it. But what can I say, it was damn good. And horribly depressing. And frighteningly prescient. I think the best way to describe this movie is "it's always darkest right before it goes pitch black." Which is to say, every time you think things are going to turn around for Clive Owen and company, they just get worse. I don't want to give away anything, I don't even want to discuss the plot, since I think it's best to go in not knowing anything, but suffice it to say, don't watch it if you're looking for a pick me up, but do watch it at some point. I will say this, though... this stork is delicious.

]]> 40 Pounds of Lime. 2007-02-26T06:53:30Z 2007-02-26T02:15:33Z tag:www.bearsdriving.com,2007:/blog//1.145 2007-02-26T02:15:33Z Adding to my Macs I Didn't Pay For Collection (which is currently hovering around 15 machines), I found an old iMac G3 on Broadway a couple weeks ago (make that 16 machines). It was snowing when I first walked past... pat N.Ü.R.D. Adding to my Macs I Didn't Pay For Collection (which is currently hovering around 15 machines), I found an old iMac G3 on Broadway a couple weeks ago (make that 16 machines).

It was snowing when I first walked past the iMac, which at the time was flanked by two blue and white G3 towers. I walked back past the same spot about an hour later, only to find the towers were gone (insert 9/11 joke here), and the iMac all by its lonesome. Similar to how many (read: "normal") people feel the need to bring home stray animals and nurse them back to health, I feel the same way with wayward Macs.

With my apartment only a few blocks away, I brushed the snow off as best I could, and lugged the beast home with me.

(I assume that whoever took the blue and white G3 towers thought the iMac was shot since it was filling with snow through the vents on top. This is a common misconception of anything electronical: if it gets wet, it fries. Notsomuch. Only if there's electricity running through the electronics when it gets wet will something bad happen. That's why if you have a dirty keyboard you can put it in the dishwasher to clean it, so long as you let it completely dry before you plug it back in.)

A few days later, having acquired a keyboard, mouse and '99 appropriate translucent power cord, I decided it was as dry as it was going to get, and plugged it in. No sparks. Good sign. Power button. Boing. Good sign. Semi dithered beach ball. Uhh. Splash screen. Mac OS X Server? WTF? It's an old server. That was unexpected. Login prompt. Ah crap.

First thing I did when I brought the iMac home was to open the i/o panel on the side to check the specs of the machine. (333MHz 64MB RAM iMac Rev. D, if you were wondering) (oh, yeah, it's green too) (I mean, uh, Lime?) What else do I find in the i/o slot? A piece of masking tape with "root" and a password written on it. Bingo bango. So I typed that in... hmmm. Again. Hmmm. Wait, is that a "r" or a "n?" That might be a 4... I think. Maybe it's supposed to be a capital "k."

20 minutes later, and some consulting with the roommates yielded no results on the password front. Ah crap. Well, I'll just pop in my Tiger disc and run password reset. Oh, wait, no DVD drive. Balls. Oh, well, I'll just download that Panther disk image from Bear's FTP that I keep around for just such an occasion. Oh, wait, neither Toast nor Disk Utility will burn it? Weird.

So flash forward a couple days, and I've acquired some Jaguar upgrade discs. I figure the earlier older the cat the better, since this is clearly from either the 10.0 or 10.1 days (or possibly the Public Beta... although that would have probably expired by 2007). So I fire up Password Reset, and lo and behold... nothing. Huh. Maybe Jaguar wasn't old enough? Possibly, but I wasn't going to find anything older than Jaguar.

Single User Mode, here I come.

Single User Mode works... oddly. It comes up in quasi GUI mode, with a full screened terminal window. Weird. After some digging around on the interweb, I find some commands for resetting the root password in the netinfo database. As I soon find out though, there is no netinfo database on this machine. So bizarre. There's another account called "Administrator" though, which I figure might be easier to reset than root. Sure enough, after some more googling, I stumble upon this page at your favorite Mac hacking wiki and mine, MacShadows. And guess what... it worked!

So, finally... two weeks after I dragged the machine in from the cold, I can see what it was all for. Drumroll please...


(click image for largeness)

Umm... what? It's not quite OS X, it's not quite OS9, it's not quite NEXTSTEP... it's Mac OS X Server 1.0! (I'm particularly fond of the Sticky note, and the "Expiring Beta" notice on OmniWeb... that's putting it lightly)

Now I consider myself quite the nerd, especially in the world of Apple, but I had never even heard of Mac OS X Server 1.0. According to Wikipedia page, it was the first fruits of Apple's NeXT acquisition. Madness. Anyway, so obviously this was too cool to reformat right away, I had to play around.

First thing's first, let's get it online. This was, uh, interesting. Since it's not really OS9, there's no Control Panels, and since it's not really OS X, there's no System Preferences. So where does one modify TCP/IP settings? Yeah, good luck with that. Eventually I found a setup assistant (it took a while just to find the Applications folder) (there's actually several), and I was up and running. It couldn't pull DHCP off the router in the apartment, so I had to set up everything manually, but it worked.

Secondly, what was this thing serving, anyway? In addition to the masking tape with the root password on it, the only other distinguishing feature on the machine was another piece of tape (blue painter's tape this time) with some IP addresses on it. The IPs were registered to Flat.com. iTools.app, which seemed to be an early port of Apache to Darwin, was set to run on start up... so as best I can figure, this iMac was the old flat.com web server.

(Incidentally, Flat is located at 391 Broadway, directly in front of where I found the iMac.)

So yes. There it is. No really, there it is. It's sitting there on my desk staring me in the face as I type this. Thing is huge. And loud. And slow. And it hates its life. "Please... kill me..." it says. I would too, given the circumstances. As stated on the Wikipedia page, it is indeed running two OSs, both Server 1.0 and Mac OS 8.5 under an emulation layer. Unlike Classic under Mac OS X, once you boot up 8.5, you're stuck there until you shut it down. It's weird. Non Parallels weird, but weird.

p < .001 indeed.

]]> Beepy shit. 2007-01-18T03:31:39Z 2006-12-16T04:40:57Z tag:www.bearsdriving.com,2006:/blog//1.144 2006-12-16T04:40:57Z As Sweeps Week starts to winds down, I thought I'd bombard you with a multimedia onslaught! Or, you know, some Google Video. Two weeks ago at this very minute I was downtown in the financial district listening to chiptunes at... pat Musik As Sweeps Week starts to winds down, I thought I'd bombard you with a multimedia onslaught!

Or, you know, some Google Video.

Two weeks ago at this very minute I was downtown in the financial district listening to chiptunes at the Blip Festival. It was four days of what my friend Ashley would call "beepy shit." And let me tell you... it was glorious. The Tank puts on quite a show. Tons of musicians, awesome visuals, workshops, a showing of both the Super Mario Movie (not the Jon Legusamo version), and the 8 Bit movie.

The music was really what it was all about, though. All of the artists were 8bitpeoples are awesome. Check out their site to get an idea of what they do. They have a bunch of albums up free for download with the Creative Commons license if you want to peruse their discography. I highly recommend Bit Shifter and Random. And if you're feeling particularly festive, you could even download the 8 Bits of Christmas. Tis the season to, uh, listen to 8-bit Game Boy music?

Anyway, to give you a better impression of what the show was like, here's a video that I uploaded to Google Video of Covox performing at the Saturday night show. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but a video, well, I can't even do the math on that one.

Beepy, no? And if you're super interested, Matt Hawkins has a very thorough Blip Fest review covering all the other artists. Awesome.

Goodnight New York!

]]> Heistilicious. 2006-12-15T04:46:12Z 2006-12-15T04:41:04Z tag:www.bearsdriving.com,2006:/blog//1.143 2006-12-15T04:41:04Z So I've never impulse bought software before. Mostly because it's kind of a hard thing to do. You can't really pick up Photoshop in the checkout line with a TV Guide and a Snickers. Not yet anyway. That said, nowadays,... pat N.Ü.R.D. So I've never impulse bought software before. Mostly because it's kind of a hard thing to do. You can't really pick up Photoshop in the checkout line with a TV Guide and a Snickers. Not yet anyway. That said, nowadays, you can download a shareware program and pay for it within the app without even touching a web browser. Welcome to 2006, bitches.

Anyway, that's exactly what I did with Delicious Library a little over a year ago. (I guess make that 2005, bitches.) I downloaded it, played around for like 20 minutes, and then bought it. Forty bucks. Not bad. Soon after I bought it though, I started feeling impulse regret. Mostly because I was convinced Delicious Library 2.0 was right around the corner and I was going to have to drop another thirty bucks to upgrade. Fuck.

Well, here we are, more than a year later... and we're at Delicious Library 1.6. Yay hooray. At this point thirty bucks for all the new crap that's being included in 2.0 is perfectly reasonable.

Wait, there is new crap, right?

Well, I just read an interview with Wil Shipley of Delicious Monster and Omni fame on Ars. When asked about DL2 he didn't say much. In fact, from the sounds of it, all it's gonna be is a graphical overhaul accompanied by a huge speed increase and support for larger libraries. A far cry from the in 2.0 "we're going to flip a switch in the next version and it will turn into social software" remark he made during a Wired interview almost two years ago. (That said, I'm all for a speed increase. Fuck new features, I just want the damn thing to work.)

There was one enlightening part of the interview, though. Ars asks Wil what he thinks of MacHeist, a site that takes a bunch of small Mac apps and bundles them together at a deep discount. (The current offer is insane, $49 for 10 great apps... bear in mind Delicious Library is $40 on its own.) Anyway, MacHeist has gotten some negative press lately for supposedly taking advantage of independent Mac developers. (That link leads to Gus Mueller who everyone seems to be linking to for some negative MacHeist spin, but but per usual, for the fairest commentary, talk to Gruber.)

ANYway, in his Ars interview Shipley says all there needs to be said about this, no need to read anything else on the subject: "None of us who are bundled with MacHeist were forced to do so; we knew ahead of time what the price would be and how much we'd get." Bam, case closed.

More people need to take a tip from Wil. Both in the world of Macintosh software, but also in the world in general. Quit bitching. If you don't like it, don't buy it. Don't participate. No one is making you buy or sell or anything. Like dad always said: vote with your wallet.

]]> Bring me the finest muffins and bagels in all the land! 2006-12-14T03:54:40Z 2006-12-14T03:45:17Z tag:www.bearsdriving.com,2006:/blog//1.142 2006-12-14T03:45:17Z pat Small Screen After I watch this week's episode of House— downloading now... 17 minutes remaining— I believe my TV watching is over until 2007 (unless Neil Patrick Harris shows up one more time in December). That is, if you can call what I watch TV. I don't really watch TV proper at all anymore (not even on TiVo, frowny face), I download everything the next day and watch it on das PowerBook. Ergo House.

Anyway, yeah. Lost is over until February (fuckers!), Heroes is on hiatus, House is done, and South Park won't be new until like, I don't even know... June? 24 hasn't even started yet... but when it does... hoo boy. So that leaves, hmmm... ah yes: Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip.

When the final episode of The West Wing aired last May I had mixed feelings about the show ending. On the one hand, I was sad to see it go... for the most part it was a good show. On the other hand, it had really gone downhill in recent seasons, and the story had reached its logical conclusion. So I was happy and sad.

When I heard that Aaron Sorkin was making a new show for the fall though, I was wicked excited and that more than made up for The West Wing ending. (Aaron Sorkin created The West Wing, and single-handidly wrote every episode of the first four seasons.) And when I heard that it was going to be about the behind-the-scenes of an SNL-esque show, I was even more excited. Sorkin specializes shows about exclusive environments like, well, the west wing ("The West Wing"), sports shows ("Sports Night"), and now live television comedy ("Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip").

Anyway, we're 11 episodes in so far, and it's been damn entertaining. Reminds me of how The West Wing used to be. Good times. It's sort of like watching the both backstage antics at SNL and the innerworkings of a television network. Both make for great television.

Problem is, not everyone seems to share my exuberance. Apparently its rating are low, which (obviously) is bad, but the viewers that it does have are of the richy rich variety (good). And while it's been picked up for a full season, the question is will it last past that?

One of the complaints of people who don't like Studio 60 is that they say the show within the show isn't funny. I.e. the sketches in the fictional "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" aren't humorous. To those people I say, SNL isn't funny either, why should Studio 60 be? If anything, Studio 60 not being funny adds credibility to the show.

And moreover, some of it is funny. Last week's episode had a pretty good bit in it (a To Catch a Predator spoof, starring Santa Claus.) I laughed out loud at the premise alone, which is more than I can say I've done while watching SNL in the past 10 years.

(Quick aside: Why is it that we actually see the sketches at all? Back in The West Wing days you would virtually never see President Bartlet give any speeches or do anything big and presidential. The episode would invariably end just as he was taking the stage or just started kicking some ass. Perhaps it was Sorkin's laziness, or it was just to keep the presidential mystique, but which ever it was, Studio 60 could use some of The West Wing's restraint.)

Anyway, my problem with Studio 60 (the show show, not the show within the show) is that it's trying to exist in two worlds simultaneously, and it's just awkward and distracting for everyone involved and everyone watching.

You see, Studio 60 exists in this nebulous world where CBS, Fox, NBC and ABC all exist (I think ABC exists... hmm), but there's also this other network, NBS. (One might imagine that the NBS acronym is a combination of NBS and CBS, the two networks that were bidding on broadcast rights to Studio 60.) Maybe it's the network that UPN and The WB never were... or maybe it's a, uh, seventh network? Who knows.

Problem is, in this world you've got all of these pretty well known actors (Matthew Perry, Amanda Peet, Steven Weber, Mark McKinney and others) playing other people, while co-existing in the real world with other actors playing themselves. You following me? For example, references are made to Saturday Night Live on a regular basis. This is in addition to companies, shows, and people in the real world: HBO, Fox, Conan, Letterman, Leno, Donald Trump, Desperate Housewives, Deal or No Deal, Seinfeld, the list goes on. But then, inexplicably, other well-known actors show up also not as themselves: John Goodman, Judd Hirsch, Ed Asner... and then other people do guest star as themselves: Rob Reiner, Howie Mandel, Lauren Graham, Sting, blah blah blah.

The best (worst?) example of the real world clashing with the fictionalized Studio 60 world is in an episode where Amanda Peet and Steven Weber are talking about focus groups and George Clooney is brought up (apparently he didn't test well). Amanda Peet says something like "oh, he's hot," or something, at which point all I could think about is the both of them starring in "Syriana."

With such a well-connected cast, it's only a matter of time before there are more blatant real-world connections between characters in the show and actors in reality. And it's just going to make me cringe.

Anyway. That's my problem with the show. It's not a big problem yet, and hopefully it won't ever become one. I think the writers (err... writer?) is conscious of the problem it could become, and is actively trying to avoid it.

But hey, other than that, great show. I dig that Sorkin chose to eschew the title sequence to cram in a little more dialogue. (He's a wordy motherfucker like myself.) Likewise, I appreciate the titles using the same font as The West Wing. Classy. Kind of ties the two shows together.

Now that'd be something. Studio 60 existing in the alternate reality of The West Wing? The mind boggles at the mere thought.

]]> Kicked in the Berries. 2006-12-13T07:00:15Z 2006-12-12T16:50:52Z tag:www.bearsdriving.com,2006:/blog//1.141 2006-12-12T16:50:52Z Previously on Bear: After nearly four years of exclusive Sidekick use, Pat has grown increasingly frustrated with T-Mobile's complacency with the platform. As the four year mark rapidly approaches, Pat takes a new computer consulting job which offers him a... pat N.Ü.R.D. Previously on Bear: After nearly four years of exclusive Sidekick use, Pat has grown increasingly frustrated with T-Mobile's complacency with the platform. As the four year mark rapidly approaches, Pat takes a new computer consulting job which offers him a BlackBerry along with free service. Having spent $300 on a new Sidekick 3 several months prior, Pat has a difficult decision to make. Will his loyalties to the Sidekick overpower that of the free BlackBerry, or will he sell out and go corporate, leaving Paris Hilton et al behind? Tune in tonight to find out.

And now, the conclusion.

So yeah, I'm a BlackBerry user now. It wasn't a very hard decision. Kind of a no-brainer, really.

If you read last night's post, you know my qualms with the Sidekick. Basically, the platform has stagnated. What was awesome in 2002 is now common place. I need my technology new and shiny, that's how I roll. Second-hand is for clothes and books, man.

Thing is, my BlackBerry isn't new and shiny. Nor is it old and busted, really. If anything it's reminiscent of the condition my Sidekick II was in when I sold it to that guy on the street back in August. It's not the condition of the device that's important though I suppose; it's the tech that's running behind it. And while BlackBerry tech is certainly older than Sidekick tech (1999 versus 2002), BlackBerry is new to me, and that's all that matters.

Perhaps the best example of BlackBerry tech in action is the email service (I also think it's a large part of what makes BlackBerries so addictive to people, I find out when I have a new message on my phone before my email client tells me... instant gratification). Sidekicks speak to POP and IMAP servers, but it doesn't write to either... and that's an important difference between Sidekicks and BlackBerries: the syncing.

To sync, BlackBerries are reliant on RIM's BlackBerry Enterprise Server, and Sidekicks are reliant on Danger/T-Mobile's HipTop servers. Just so happens though, RIM's setup is better than Danger's. (Case in point: you don't see Danger being sued over server technology, do ya?) What's so great about BlackBerry Enterprise Server is that it works just how you want it to, and you don't have to think about it. It just happens. Sidekick's syncing is nice too, but unlike BES where you can have your phone sync to Outlook or Entourage, T-Mobile's arcane "Desktop Interface" (an unintuitively named "web app" if you can even call it that), only works, well... on the web. Likewise, whereas importing and exporting data from your BlackBerry is as simple as firing up Outlook/Entourage, with a Sidekick you can import your existing contacts and calendars data via a web form on their site, but if you want to export... well... not so much. T-Mobile wants you locked in, man. If you want true Desktop syncing (but only to a Windows PC running Outlook), you can shell out $9.99 for "Intellisync for Sidekick." Thanks but no thanks Catherine Zeta Jones.

Anyway, long story short, BES works, and it works well. It's a more open platform. As is the world of BlackBerries in general, really. Want to install an app on your Sidekick? Okay, hit up The Catalog app (it's on the top and unmoveable, you can miss it), and then browse all of the three applications that are available and pony up the case, sucker. You only get to choose what we, the T-Mobile gate keepers approve. And any apps you buy might break when Sidekick 4 comes out. Okay, now, want to install an app on your BlackBerry? Okay, awesome. Find an app you want via the web browser, and install it. No really, just click on the little .jad file and go to town. That's it. Google Maps anyone? (Google Maps in my pocket alone sold me on the BlackBerry.)

It's not all porkchops and apple sauce, though. The single biggest reason for my hesitation to jump ship wasn't the data exporting like I thought it would be. Nor was it the kinda clunky interface of the Blackberry 7290 versus the SK3. (Quick aside: People criticize the Treo for not being designed from the ground up as a smart phone, but what a lot of people don't realize is that BlackBerries used to be big chunky pagers with keyboards way before they were phones. Consequently the Sidekick rules all from a usability perspective. Scene.) No, my biggest cause for concern was getting used to the BlackBerry keyboard. Da da dum!

What people whose only smart phone experience has been on a BlackBerry fail to realize is that there are better keyboards out there. I actually hate the BlackBerry keyboard. I'm getting used to it slowly, but I still don't like it. The Sidekick 3 has one of the best keyboards on the market, whereas the BlackBerry (at least the 7200 series) has one of the worst. Sweet christ, I hope it's the worst, because I feel for whoever has to deal with anything crappier. (Possibly the bizarre BlackBerry Pearl keyboard?)

The great thing about the Sidekick is that its teeny tiny little keyboard— while trunicated— at least makes sense. Letters and numbers are where they're expected to be, and punctuation is at least in the ballpark. Anything goes on the BlackBerry, though. Question mark? Oh, that's on the V key. How about a semi-colon? Oh, that's buried in the symbols menu. Symbol? Really? I know it's a shit piece of punctuation, but it's not an percentage symbol, jesus.

Another thing that was great about the Sidekick keyboard was that the keys were offset like on a real keyboard. This (as far as I know) is completely unique to the Sidekick. Every other phone I see with a QWERTY keyboard has the keys lined up in a grid. Q is directly above A, W above S, et cetera. That's what happens when an engineer solves a problem versus someone who will actually be using the damn thing. Sidekicks have always had little nubs on the F and J keys as well to help you type without looking, ala real keyboards again.

The only thing BlackBerry has on the Sidekick from a typist's perspective is the on software side of things. RIM again has the edge on Danger there. It's as if RIM knew they had a shitty keyboard, so they had to make the text input as smart as possible. For example, you never have to type a period at the end of a sentence on a BlackBerry. Weird, right? No, instead you hit space twice, and then start on your next sentence. The BlackBerry sees what you're doing and changes the first space into a period and capitalizes the first letter of the word for you. Not bad. Likewise, if you need to capitalize a letter, don't hit shift. Hitting shift is for pussies. Just hold the letter an extra half second, and it capitalizes itself. Need to put a accent on a letter? Hit the letter, then spin the scroll wheel until you get to the right accent. There's a bunch of little tricks, probably some that I haven't even found yet.

But that's sort of the problem, though. The Sidekick is great, because you can just type. You don't need to learn all of these little tricks, you just go. The BlackBerry is (again) like a Palm, where you have to relearn things to compensate for the device's shortcomings. It's 2006 guys... it should be the other way around by now. The device should be compensating for your shortcomings.

(Yes, I just wrote like five paragraphs about the nuances of the BlackBerry keyboard versus the Sidekick 3 keyboard... hey, it's Sweeps Week.)

Anyway, enough about keyboards. That's really the biggest thing, though. Also on the hardware side of things, I dig having a phone that can charge over USB. Very nice. No bringing around extra chargers wherever I go anymore. Also, speaking of power, the BlackBerry is pretty energy efficient. It has a comparable screen to the Sidekick (same resolution, actually), and operates on the same network, but it just seems smarter as far as battery use goes. Also, when you're really low on juice, it automatically turns the radio off while the device still has some power. This allows you to briefly turn the radio back on when you need it one last time to make that really important phone call. Nice touch.

Finally, wrapping up, I must concede that the Sidekick has one last leg up on the BlackBerry: it has the better fidgety behavior for when you're just sitting around hanging out. "The Sidekick Screen Flip" is hours of entertainment. The best thing I've come up with on the BlackBerry is turning it between my thumb and middle finger while holding the screen. Lame.

Anyway. Yes, so I've turned to the dark side of the BlackBerry. Rest in piece Sidekick. I do miss you, but I have no loyalties to electronics. I go where the tech is. Maybe the Sidekick 4 will bring me back into the fold.

]]> Sidekickin' is way better than Sidetalkin' 2006-12-12T06:34:13Z 2006-12-12T04:59:41Z tag:www.bearsdriving.com,2006:/blog//1.138 2006-12-12T04:59:41Z Those of you who know me personally know that I'm somewhat of a T-Mobile Sidekick whore. The original black and white Sidekick was my first cell phone back in 2002. I held out cellphoneless as long as I could, but... pat N.Ü.R.D. Those of you who know me personally know that I'm somewhat of a T-Mobile Sidekick whore. The original black and white Sidekick was my first cell phone back in 2002. I held out cellphoneless as long as I could, but once I graduated from college, I kinda realized I wasn't going to get any ass giving out my mom's home phone number. (Then again, I was living at home, so even if I were to get ass, my mom would be downstairs... good thing I didn't get any.)

Flash forward nearly four years (!), and now I'm rocking out with the Sidekick 3. What up. I'll be the first to admit, I was bit reluctant to shell out the $300 upgrade from my Sidekick II (are we doing Roman numerals, or what here, T-Mobile?), and as I've discovered in these past few months, my reluctance was well-founded. So begins Pat's Sidekick 3 review...

The consensus on the Sidekick 3 is this: "Sidekick 3? More like Sidekick 2.5! Zing!" And I can't argue with that claim.

Whereas the upgrade from the original Sidekick to the Sidekick II was huge (especially those of use that skipped over the color-screened SK1), the upgrade from SKII to SK3 is kind of "meh." Yeah, it's (slightly) smaller, yeah, there's (pretty decent) MP3 player, yeah it (sorta) has Bluetooth, and yeah the (crappy) camera is better... but that's the big stuff. And that's not even very big, really. It's 2006 for Christ sake. In 2002 the original Sidekick was incredible. I'd show it to people and they'd look at me like I was Max Headroom from that episode of Next Generation showing up from the 26th century. Now though, the Sidekick is playing catch up. Built-in MP3 player? Okay, great, but can you use the MP3's as ringtones? Not so much. 1.3MP camera? Okay, but can it shoot video? Nope. EDGE support? Nice, but no true 3G? Oh, all right. Bluetooth? Sweet, can you use your Sidekick as a modem? Oh, no, bummer. Can it even do rudimentary syncing with a computer? Oh, okay. Stuff that's now standard on other phones is foreign to the 'Kick.

Anyway, enough of my curmudgeoness... give us the good news, Pat. Okay... uh, besides it being smaller? Because it is. A little. It feels slimmer, and it is slimmer. It feels longer, and it is longer. It feels less wide, but it isn't, really. If you took the rubber baby buggy bumpers off the Sidekick II, it'd be the same width as the Sidekick 3. But again, curmudgeony. (Also the lack of bumpers makes the L and R and other side buttons a bitch to hit.) (Damn kids on my lawn!)

Okay, well, like I said, the MP3 player is actually pretty good. It runs off the miniSD card Danger crammed in the SK3's backside. T-Mobile includes a 64MB card to get you started (space is shared with the MP3 player and camera), but you can just pop off the back cover and put your own card in, up to 2GB. (Also, when you take the back cover off, the phone knows it and warns you... impressive.) Anyway, to get started, you just plug your Sidekick into your computer, the card pops up as a USB mass storage device, and you drag music into the "MUSIC" folder on the card. Then eject the card, unplug, and go. No crappy software to deal with, no fuss, no muss. Not bad. You can make playlists on the Sidekick, sort by artist, album, look at album art, everything you'd expect out of an actual dedicated MP3 player. Not bad again. And what's better, if you weren't listening, you wouldn't even know it's playing music when you're using other features on the phone. The system lags a little when you try to multitask loading a webpage and reading an email message, but you can listen to a 192kbps MP3 in stereo while browsing the web without the Sidekick breaking a sweat. Go figure. It must have a dedicated DSP chip for the decoding, because I doubt it's doing it all in software. The only irksome bit I've found is that you can only scrub tracks in the mini player, not the player proper. Weird. Oh, also, after you end a call, if you were listening to music, your song it automatically fades back up. Dope.

Before moving on, one qualm about the MP3 player, and the phone in general for that matter: the whole thing is just quiet. Maybe my ears are going because I'm an old man, but the music player is way quiet, and the speakerphone isn't up to snuff, nor is the regular talking speaker, either. I see people listening to iPods over the noise of the subway all the time... and yeah, that might not be great for your ears, but hey, I'd at least like to have it as an option. Anyway...

Also on the hardware niceties side of things is a somewhat unnecessary addition to the SK3, but at least it's kinda cool: the new scroll ball. The original Sidekick had a huge, glowing LED scroll wheel; it was one of the device's most outstanding features (besides the awesome flipping screen, obvi). The Sidekick II shrunk the scroll wheel, but compensated for this shrinkage by adding dedicated page up and page down buttons and shifting the LED indicators over to the (now externally located) d-pad. Now, with the SK3, we've in some ways gone back to the old skool, and shifted the light back to the right side, and added this (pretty awesome) scroll ball. The d-pad now acts as not only the ear piece when in phone mode, but the speaker in speakerphone mode, and also the speaker for MP3 playback. Some might say having two four-way directional tools is crazy on a phone. To those people I say: bring on the FPS's. Seriously. One D-pad for movement, another for aiming... genius! I'm waiting for a Doom port, but I know it's not going to happen. (It should also be noted that the SK3 — and the original SK and the SKII for that matter— have the exact same screen resolution as a GBA. I'm just saying.) (I'm also just saying... are we still at 240x160 res-wise, Danger? Really? Four years? You must have bought a lot of those LCDs.)

And speaking of games, this brings up something else: p.s. your Catalog purchases have been deleted. Sorry. Back in the day, any applications, games and ringtones you bought on your Sidekick transferred automatically to your SKII. SKII to SK3? Not so much. Apparently it's an API issue, but T-Mobile should hook you up with some store credit or something, because that's kind of a big deal if you invested a chunk of cash in a platform that you has no upgrade path for your existing purchases. I'm glad I didn't buy that "Trapped in the Closet" ringtone I was eyeing... viiiiiiiibrate!

Anyway, back to hardware. In other atrophying hardware news, battery-life is better, although not by much. And perhaps not even better, considering I had gotten used to my (nearly) two year old Sidekick II's limited battery life, whereas this battery is brand new. Then again, this battery is huge, so if it's not better, I'd be surprised.

The keyboard is sort of a toss up as well. Yeah, it's cool looking, but I don't think it's as comfortable as the SKII's. Don't get me wrong, it's still the best keyboard on the market (save the SKII), but it's definitely a step down. The rubber keys are gone, replaced with translucent (transparent?) keys with the numbers and letters printed on the bottom. Typing has gotten slightly smarter, however. If you're typing an ellipsis (...) it no longer auto-capitalizes the following word (something which Entourage on the Mac still does, jesus). It's a small thing yes, but it's the attention to detail that matters. And you've gotta figure for that if they've smartened that up, there's probably a few other things they've smartened that I just haven't noticed.

Finally, regarding the camera. 1.3 megapixels? Meh, okay, that's average at this point. I will say this, though: the flash is for real. It's still not a real camera flash with a filament or whatever real flashes have, but it is a seriously bright LED. Especially compared to the (literally) comical flash of the SKII.

Anyway, so that's all I've got for the SK3. Tune in tomorrow for a surprise cell phone announcement as Sweeps Week continues here with Bear!

]]> Sweeps Week 2006-12-11T04:14:51Z 2006-12-11T04:07:28Z tag:www.bearsdriving.com,2006:/blog//1.140 2006-12-11T04:07:28Z It's Sweeps Week here at Bear. I'm renegotiating my rates with all my advertisers, so I've gotta get page views up. This means all new content! Movies, video games, music, electronics, and uh... books? Books? Is that right? Really? Okay,... pat Huh? It's Sweeps Week here at Bear. I'm renegotiating my rates with all my advertisers, so I've gotta get page views up. This means all new content! Movies, video games, music, electronics, and uh... books? Books? Is that right? Really? Okay, yes, books! Fuck yeah! New characters! Old characters! Middle-aged characters! Someone will live! Someone will die! And someone is having a baby! You're not going to believe who! Tune in all this week to find out!

NOTE: This press release contains forward-looking statements about the Bear's estimated revenue and earnings per share and the potential for significant adjustments to the financial results included in this release. These statements involve risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ. Void where prohibited. Actual results may very. Consult a physician before operating heavy machinery. Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball. Don't fake the funk on a nasty dunk. Be sure to eat your vegetables. Sorry, no CODs.

]]> Classic search queries. 2006-10-21T00:04:08Z 2006-10-20T07:50:36Z tag:www.bearsdriving.com,2006:/blog//1.107 2006-10-20T07:50:36Z So I doubt anyone noticed this because 1) very few people read this site, and C) the few that do read it probably do so via a RSS reader, but this past weekend Bear was down. Repeat, we had a... pat Huh? So I doubt anyone noticed this because 1) very few people read this site, and C) the few that do read it probably do so via a RSS reader, but this past weekend Bear was down. Repeat, we had a bear down. Obviously things are back up and running now, else you wouldn't be here, but it was traumatic for all parties involved. Well, myself, mostly.

Anyway, the reason for the downtime was that I momentarily let the registration lapse on the website. It was a close call, but I shelled out the tree-fiddy for another year, and all was well.

Point is, it's been two years of bear now, and boy how the time flies. Whooo weee. I mean, just two years ago I was sitting in front of a computer writing some inane entry about blogging software. Now I'm writing about stats packages. How far we've come.

One of my favorite things of having a website is having access to a stats package. Megan is a big fan of Mint, and I actually installed Google Analytics on the site a couple months ago. Call me old-fashioned though, but I just use the built-in stats package that DreamHost provides, Analog. Mostly because it provides daily search query reports which I find hilarious.

So, in honor of Bear's second birthday, here are some search query highlights of the last two years...

Judging from search queries alone, one would assume that this site would be full of naked gay bears kicking people in the nuts, eating them alive, and then helping them fix their iPods. All from the stance of an anti-Hitler, pro-marker-fumes filthy pirate hooker who wants to declare shenanigans history. While chatting online with pornographic buddy icons, of course.

In reality though, I mostly just write about Nintendo and movies that I've seen. Something which you wouldn't really know looking at that list, oddly enough.

The two things that stick out looking at not just the funny queries, but all searches, are "bear" and "iPod." The "bear" thing peaked right around the time "Grizzly Man" was airing on the Discovery Channel and Stephen Colbert's anti-bear campaign was in full swing. It has since died down, but there's still a steady stream of bear-related search queries coming in every day. As for "iPod," the "Your iPod Tip For the Day" page still registers more hits than any other page on the site... probably more than virtually every other page combined. Sad but true, I'm a one-hit wonder as far as Google is concerned.

Combing through all of these queries, what I like more than anything else is the insight it gives one into the depths of the human psyche. I stopped around the 30th page of Google results looking for "weird shit taken out of people," but I'm confident there's a page on this site that somehow fulfills that query; and likewise, someone out there went through 30+ pages of Google search results to find it. That's dedication.

One other note, maybe it's because close to three o'clock in the morning right now, but it's starting to hurt my brain thinking about how this entry is going to get indexed by Google. These keywords could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. By that I mean, before there was no discernible reason to come to this site looking for "weird shit taken out of people" but now that I've mentioned that phrase three times on this page alone... well, now there is.

I think I just blew my own mind.

Oh, and that awesome NES game that I really like? Super Spike V'Ball.

]]> Dorkfest. 2006-10-11T04:42:32Z 2006-10-11T03:20:47Z tag:www.bearsdriving.com,2006:/blog//1.139 2006-10-11T03:20:47Z I must say, it's good to be a dork in New York. Within the span of a week I've had the opportunity to go to Wired's NextFest, play with the Wii, and go see a documentary about the 8-bit art... pat N.Ü.R.D. I must say, it's good to be a dork in New York. Within the span of a week I've had the opportunity to go to Wired's NextFest, play with the Wii, and go see a documentary about the 8-bit art scene. Now technically I won't see "8 BIT" until tomorrow, but point is, I had the opportunity to but missed out on Saturday due to ticket booth incompetence. But hey, I did get to do that other stuff.

First off, NextFest was the bomb. I had never been, but Wired has bills it as the "World's Fair of the Future." After going, I can say that billing is pretty spot on. Free copies of Wired were in abundance, as were free bottles of Coke BlaK, robots, and nerds.

Obviously one of the highlights for me was the video game section. Atari had great setup, not with their own stuff mind you, but with a bunch of independent game developers. Games ranged from the weird (Brainball), to the awesome (TFT Tennis), to the awesomest (MobZombies). MobZombies was the only game I actually played, and like many things at NextFest, it was definitely beta... well, more like alpha, really. Is there anything before alpha? Anyway, it was held together with electrical tape and running off a 9V battery, if that gives you any idea what it was like. But still, it was really clever, and the dudes (kids, really) who made it were there to answer any question I threw at them. Very cool.

It wasn't all just video games, though. Jeff Han's Media Mirror was very cool. At first I thought it was just a live photo-mosaic generator; something where a video camera looks at you, and then generates a live "mirror" image of you with a library of photos on the hard drive of a computer. Upon closer inspection though, I realized that the pictures making up with photo-mosaic weren't pictures at all, but live television feeds. Dang.

The Vein Viewer does pretty much what you'd think it would do: it views veins. You hold your arm out over this big thing that looks like the x-ray machine at your dentist's office, and it projects an image of your veins onto your skin in this greenish-Matrixy hue. Pretty groovy and— unlike most things at NextFest— very practical. Oh yeah one more thing: have hairy arms? Oh, okay, I'll just hit the "hair" button. Impressive.

Panoscope 360º, was actually at NextFest in Chicago last year, has made a lot of progress. I didn't go to Chicago, but (to me anyway) it looked like the coolest thing there. This year they had three hemispheres going (the full size, a smaller 9' one, and a flat LCD version), and had them linked together to play a game. It was interesting because the Quebecians (damn you French Canada!) were big Nintendo fans, and openly admitted that their game control setup was inspired by the Wii. As cool as it was, I was slightly disappointed with their booth (err... sphere), because there was a lot of light coming in from the outside, and they wouldn't close the opening between the two halves for a better 360º experience. Oh well.

Best of show though, has got to be Jeff Han's (again!) Multi-Touch Interaction Research project. (Truth be told, GE brought Jeff to NextFest, but A] GE can blow me, and 2] I can't find a link to a GE-sponsored page about the touch screen.) I actually had seen Jeff's site earlier this year, and while I was impressed at the time, it was only once I played with it in person did I really realize how incredible it was. First off... well, wait, watch the demo video on his site... it's only three and a half minutes, and it's got a bitchin' soundtrack. I'll wait.

Mmm... Voss energy drink.

You back? Okay. So, cool, right? Very "Minority Report" (there's also some voice recognition that he's since added, but the touchscreen is way cooler). There's a neat touch screen setup at the Samsung Store in Columbus Circle, but it's not nearly as well-implemented as this, and Samsung is a huge technology company. This is some guy who works at NYU. Jeff's setup is awesome for a number of reasons. First off, it's rear projected, so unlike a lot of other touch screens, you're not obstructing the view of what you're working on while you're working on it. Cool. Secondly, it doesn't seem to be very processor intensive. As best I could tell the whole thing was running off a standard (admitted high-end) laptop PC, which powered both the laptop display and the 36" x 27" touchscreen. Thirdly, and most importantly, as you can see it can handle not just one input (i.e. a stylus), but multiple inputs simultaneously. Multiple fingers, multiple hands, and multiple fingers on multiple hands from multiple people. What really set me over the edge though, was at one point, Jeff, myself, and a few other people were all sitting around the table playing with the different gestures that the screen understands (make a fist to pan, two fingers to click and drag, et cetera...), when another person who was standing around reached in to play with the screen. And what happened when that person touched the screen? Not a damn thing. Somehow (something to do with capacitance?) the screen could tell that person wasn't sitting down at the table, and thus ignored the input. Crazy. Crazy cool. I want one. Damn you GE! (p.s. More touch screeny goodness.)

So if the touch screen was the highlight, the low light had to be the PixelRoller paint brush. I'm not even going to link to it. The guys were douchebags, they were late to show up to their own demo, and the demo was unimpressive. The technology has promise, but if you're going to bother to demonstrating it to people (nerds in particular), you've gotta have some Q&A, give people some specs, do some making-of... that sorta thing. Whatever.

Anyway, yeah, that's NextFest. I don't know if it's going to be in NYC next year, but if it is... I'm all over it. $12 well spent if I do say so myself.

Moving on to the Wii...

So it's been a week since I played with a Wii. Not my own Wii, mind you... someone else's Wii. Gross, I know.

For the past couple years, Nintendo has been putting on this "Nintendo Fusion Tour." Basically Nintendo of America (because Nintendo of Japan would never do this), finds a semi-reputable but by no means "big" band (I think last year it was Evanescence) to go on tour with around the country hawking Nintendo products on the youth of America. I can't imagine it's a big cash cow for Nintendo, and the money would probably be spent better elsewhere, but whatever.

Point is, in years previous, I imagine most people go to see the band, and then on the side there's some Nintendo systems set up to fuck around with. This year though, the band sucks worse than usual (Hawthorne Heights?), and Nintendo actually has some hardware that people care about (Wii!!!). So last week the Fusion Tour came to New York, but they had a couple days downtime before the gig, so they set up shop in the Nintendo World Store in Rockefeller Plaza last Tuesday, and let people come in and play with the Wii for free. Not too shabby. Fortunately I had put in some extra hours at work recently, so I got to sneak out for a few hours, head uptown and spend some quality time dorking out.

Anyway, around 11 o'clock, I stepped out of work and headed up to Rockefeller Plaza with my Game Boy Micro, ready to wait in line until noon when things were supposed to start. I got there around 11:30 though, and the doors were already open and people were already dweebing. Hey, I'll take it.

So by 11:45, I was playing WarioWare: Smooth Moves on the Wii. Awesome.

Now I don't mean to brag, but I nailed WarioWare. There were about 15 mini-games and a boss stage, and I beat every one of them. Now you could argue that I just have a natural aptitude for WarioWare— and you wouldn't be wrong— but I think it's a testament to the wiimote more than anything else. It was my first time using the thing, and it went off without a hitch. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.

Regarding the wiimote, though. First off, it's much smaller than anticipated. Granted, everyone who has played with it has said this, so I knew that going in... but it still struck me as small. Conversely, it's heavier than anticipated (although that could be a byproduct of its smallness?). As for the tech inside, I think we're definitely getting our $40 worth. Everything was incredibly responsive, and WarioWare was a good test of virtually everything. There were pointing minigames, there were gyroscopic minigames, there were accelerometer minigames, and there were combinations of all three. And they were all super-responsive and super-intuitive. The only downside of all this was that the wiimote was tethered to the display unit, so I felt slightly restricted, but overall it was very cool. (Also, quicknote about the display units: I dig that the "Wii" logo is off-centered to the right, just like the game packaging is going to be... it's the little things.)

Anyway, so yeah, WarioWare, very cool. They also had Excite Truck and various Wii Sports games on site, but I figured I could play Wii Sports all I wanted once it came out, and I had no interest in Excite Truck. So that left one last game: Metroid Prime 3.

Unfortunately, after waiting in line for Metroid for a half hour, they shutdown all the Wiis so Hawthorne Heights (who?) could perform an acoustic set upstairs. Totally gay. I took the opportunity to go out to Rockefeller Plaza and have lunch.

(Fast forward one peanut butter sandwich and about three hours later...)

Ahh... Metroid. Metroid isn't due out until next year, so I figured it would be worth three hour (!) wait. Whether or not that's the case remains to be seen. I did have a fun time with it, though, that much is certain. My left-handedness was a bit of a handicap (aiming/looking with my right hand, moving with my left), but I pulled it off regardless. The nunchuk isn't used in WarioWare, so Metroid was my first experience with the other half of the Wii controller. The nunchuk is: also smaller than expected, just as white, and not nearly as hi-tech as the wiimote. It does have an accelerometer built-in though, which (at least in Metroid) gets used interesting ways. One might say I "grappled" with it well. Ha.

Anyway, yeah, that's the Wii. T-minus 40 days or so until it comes out. I'm definitely getting more excited the closer it gets, particularly now that I've actually played with the damn thing. Five hours in the middle of a Tuesday well spent if I do say so myself.

]]> Blockbusters shmockbusters. 2006-10-01T01:20:04Z 2006-10-01T01:09:03Z tag:www.bearsdriving.com,2006:/blog//1.133 2006-10-01T01:09:03Z So this weekend marks the official start of the fall movie schedule. Summer is over, so now it's time for the, uh... fall blockbusters? That doesn't sound right. Anyway, I guess that means it's time to write about the summer... pat Big Screen So this weekend marks the official start of the fall movie schedule. Summer is over, so now it's time for the, uh... fall blockbusters? That doesn't sound right. Anyway, I guess that means it's time to write about the summer blockbusters? Actually, this is less about blockbusters (I never got around to Pirates... although that was sort of on purpose), and more just about all the various movies I've seen to catch things up. So yes, a bunch of mini-reviews:

X-Men 3: Besides being the worst movie-going experience of my entire life— by leaps and bounds, I might add— "X-Men 3" was also easily the worst film in the X-Men franchise. It was too short, had too much going on, had no cohesive message… and, ummm, other stuff, but suffice it to say, it's definitely the weakest link in the chain. Although contrary to Megan's analysis, I'm not entirely sure it's Brett Ratner's fault. I mean, he certainly didn't help matters, but he did a fair enough job emulating Bryan Singer's style… I think the fault mostly lies in the script. But apparently all that doesn't matter, because this one outgrossed both of the other X-flicks. $157 domestically for the first one, $215 for X2, and now X-Men 3 stands at $234. What is wrong with you people? Wait, crap, I'm one of those people. Balls. Oh, one more thing... big ups (yes, big ups) to Shohreh Aghdashloo. Almost as good of a random cameo as Troi had in "Crash."

Superman Returns: The better of two superhero flicks this summer. And this one was even directed by Bryan Singer. "Superman Returns" exists in a bizarre (Bizarro?) world where it's not a direct sequel to the previous installments, but it takes place directly after the events of first two Superman movies. Singer chose to write off the third and fourth Christopher Reeve superflicks like they didn't exist and has instead chosen to make a real third movie. I guess it's kinda like the Joel Schumacher Batman movies; in that it's not a relaunch of the franchise, but a continuation with new people. Only Bryan Singer's Superman isn't totally gay like Joel Schumacher's Batman. None of this matters though, really, since it didn't do nearly as well as anticipated (despite me seeing it twice— once in IMAX 3D— and Megan seeing it five times) (five times!). How poorly did it do, you ask? Well, let's just say "Little Man" bumped it out of its number one slot. Again, I ask you, what is wrong with America?

Cars: When I first heard about "Cars," I really thought Pixar had finally lost it. I thought they were pandering to the South, to the NASCAR crowd, and it was gonna completely suck ass. Turns out I was only partially right. It's definitely cashing in on the popularity of NASCAR, and it's definitely not my favorite Pixar movie, but it's also definitely enjoyable for non-NASCAR fans, and still a pretty decent flick on its own. I must admit however, that I'm a sucker for 50's post-WWII nostalgia bullshit, and this movie is brimming with it, so perhaps I'm a little impartial. That said, even taking out the 50's-ness, it's still better than "Monsters Inc." and probably "A Bug's Life" as well. So there's that.

Renaissance: See the trailer, it's better than the movie itself, but the trailer is fucking awesome. Somehow— and I'm not sure how this is possible— it takes the look-and-feel of "Sin City" and takes it a step further. Unfortunately, the plot is a little retarded, and it's French... so it's got two strikes against it. But it doesn't totally strike out... catch it on video. Or just watch the trailer.

A Scanner Darkly: Whereas "Renaissance" is all style and no substance, "A Scanner Darkly" somehow manages to be both completely style and completely substance simultaneously. Seriously, this flick is crazy. I haven't had such a long post-movie-going discussion about a flick in a long time. It's a total mind trip, and while it certainly could have been done without all the rotoscoping madness, the animation just makes the whole thing that much more surreal. Philip K. Dick is the man, and Richard Linklater has an amazing range as a director. Oh, and Robert Downey Jr. and Woody Harrelson should probably have a sitcom together if they ever need drug money later in life. Comic gold.

The Science of Sleep: Even Frenchier than "Renaissance," but it doesn't lose any points for being so this time. It would be impossible to top "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"— and I think Michel Gondry knows that— but it doesn't stop him from trying... and trying all by himself at that. No Charlie Kaufman helping out this time, and sadly it shows. Actually, I shouldn't say shows, because the film itself is gorgeous... it's the plot that was lacking. Still good though, and extremely charming. And to top it off, the day after I saw it, I hit up Deitch Gallery, and I got to see all sorts of props from the film. Awesome.

The Illusionist: While it was no "Ultraviolet," "The Illusionist" pretty much sucked ass. Now I'm generally a re-re when it comes to plot twists and movie mysteries and whatnot, but this was just pathetic. Anyone who didn't see the entire movie coming all along is a super-re. Edward Norton, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Little Miss Sunshine: Everything you've heard about this movie is true. First and foremost, it's hilarious. After that, though, it's also perfectly cast. Greg Kinnear is great, as is Steve Carell. Toni Collette and Paul Dano also do a great job, but neither of them have a lot to do. The real standouts for me are Abigail Breslin and Alan Arkin. They're both fantastic, and really set the movie over. Bill Murray was apparently supposed to play Steve Carell's character at one point, but I feel like that would have been too much of a good thing. Anyway, yes, great movie.

Wordplay: This is gonna sound weird, but "Wordplay," the documentary about crossword puzzles... a movie about people filling little boxes with letters... you know, the one... was my favorite movie of the summer. Mutants, Men of Steel, French people, Little Miss Sunshines, hell, even Keanu, all pale in comparison. I'm not sure why I liked it so much... maybe it's because a dude from RPI plays a prominent role in the film, maybe because Bill Clinton and Jon Stewart show up and they're both left-handed, but I think the main reason is because crossword puzzles are awesome. I didn't know this going into the film, but I'm quite certain now. It takes incredible skill to design them, and it takes incredible skill to solve them. Now where's my sudoku movie?

So "Wordplay" and "Little Miss Sunshine" are the highlights. I also just saw "Hard Candy" (with X3's Jubilee), and "Talledga Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" (another NASCAR movie?), but I didn't see those in theaters, so I'm not giving them their own paragraphs. Just know that one was pretty funny and the other was pretty disturbing. I'll let you figure out which is which.

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