In Savannah

Being on vacation actually gives me a chance to play with HDR photography again. What does everyone think of this one? This is of the entryway to Wormsloe Plantation, which was the plantation of Noble Jones hundreds of years ago. The actual original structures are basically in ruins, but the four hundred oaks that line the entryway actually make the visit worthwhile.

We're staying in The Marshall House in the Historic District of Savannah. I think its technically a B&B and technically "Haunted", but its been a pretty comfortable stay and I'd recommend it for a not terribly expensive stay (or we're just in the off season) and location alone.

Why Wendy Is So Sweet

Look what she got me! If you know how much I love Domos, getting one in pink was a great surprise today. They've got them at Target special for Valentine's Day!

"Little Mountain"

Hey Everyone, long time no see. Thanks to everyone who gave me warm wishes for my 30th birthday.

I'm on vacation at the moment so i've actually got a little time to make a post. Believe it or not, I've actually be doing a lot of blogging - just not for my personal blog. If you want to see what i've been up to, check out http://www.runningdogleague.com/. Its my professional/technical blog - part of the reason that I haven't been making any technical posts on this blog anymore. As you'll see, I've actually be doing a fair amount of posting over there.

Today Wendy and I stopped by a historical site most people in the US should be easily able to recognize from the back of a nickel (the non-state nickels) - Monticello. It was a cloudy day - and pictures/video are not allowed from inside of home, but outside on the grounds.

For those who are not history buffs - this is the home of Thomas Jefferson. Unlike historic Williamsburg in Virginia - this is the actual home - not rebuilt, not a recreation in the proper location. Granted, only a subset of items inside the home are original, but considering the home fell out of Jefferson's family's hands for a large number of years - and it is over 200 years old - its in pretty good shape.

One of the most interesting points you see in the home is Jefferson's love of technology/gadgetry - I was a little surprised myself. A lot of what was in the home was custom designed by Jefferson himself, including a clock that includes hour, minute, second hand, and day of the week. A circa 1800 copy machine - well, it reproduced strokes of a pen as it was written. Jefferson made copies of every letter he wrote according to the tour.

The two biggest disappointments were the fact that it was so overcast today and that a tree that was suspected to have been planted by Jefferson himself died over the last few years and was cut down just 6 weeks ago.

And yes, I did take the photo above. :)

In A World Without Infomercials

We're living in a world with two kinds of people. Those who remember that there was a point late in the evening when television stations actually stopped broadcasting shows and those who had no idea.

In conversing with my younger brother, who is 8 years younger than me, I came to the realization that he had never seen a station sign off because most tv stations had moved to a 24 hour format (many complete with infomercials instead).

Here's an example of one from my hometown - and it feels really familiar. Are we better off now to have infomercials? Are you under 35 years old and remember these? If so, you're going to be in the minority soon. Anyone else remember these?

X-Files: I Want To Believe (That This Movie Will Be Good)

So, if you are the average moviegoer, you're probably reading this blog post in between your 3 and 4th viewing of The Dark Knight. Maybe you're waiting in line to see it in IMAX. Regardless, believe it or not, there are other movies out there right now.

X-Files: I Want To Believe actually opened on 7/25/2008. Thats over 6 years since the final X-Files series episode and 10 Years since the first X-Files movie came out. Now, I was an X-Files fan as much as anyone, and like most I started to lose interest around the same time David Duchovny did (and then shortly thereafter left the show). An introduction of new lead agents (one of them that used to be the T-1000) and at the very end bringing back Mulder in the last episode to try to help explain and wrap up all the mythology that had more or less already been revealed was about as satisfying as the final episode of Seinfeld.

So, with a release date one week after the movie with the highest grossing weekend of all time and existing fan base that is mostly disillusioned with the show, how could this movie possibly do well? And why now? Why release this movie so many years later?

Well, I saw the movie last night - and to be honest, I liked it a lot. Not more than the Dark Knight, and it isn't the greatest film of the year. But to be honest, it is a well written, generally good episode of the X-Files. If you go in with the expectation that Chris Carter and crew had another good, well produced and funded, non-mythology episode set 6 years later than the final episode of the series, you'll be pleased. Parts of it are fun, there are surprises, no major explosions. Fans of the show will be pleased, and it is a good thriller even if you aren't a major fan. As Wendy put it: It was nice to have our friends back again and see them together.

I think its just unfortunate that with the Dark Knight taking everyone's attention that this will be ignored by most people. Granted, we went to an 11:30pm showing, but the other 5 people in the theater seemed pleased. Oh, and apparently there is something after the credits according to what i've read - I didn't stay around and watch, but let me know if you wait for it. :)

The Dark Knight - IMAX

Yes, I know I haven't posted in a long time. I'm still alive.

I saw The Dark Knight at IMAX today. Wow, that was pretty awesome. If you haven't seen it yet, go.

Truck Update - As Requested

Yeah, I'm bad about updating my blog. Thanks for the nudge Jen. :) Here are some pictures of my truck taken a few days after the purchase. Its taken a bit of getting used to. Its only 6" longer than my Bonneville was, but its quite a bit higher off the ground and wider. So, i'm honestly not very good at parking it, but i'm doing pretty good on the road now.

I ended up replacing the stereo within a week of the purchase - the stock radio had no way of hooking up an ipod and the fm transmitter just wasn't a good option. The good news is it sounds WAY better now and the ipod works fine.

Its really nice to have the bed of the truck for transporting anything now - and i'm no longer concerned about buying something and the "what if it fits in my car?" I've had so many times. I know its obvious, but when all you have are passenger vehicles, it comes up all the time. I so wish I had this truck when we were moving.

I can't wait for summer now, since I'll actually have air conditioning in my vehicle. Its been almost 6 years since I've had it.

Truck Purchase

Most of what I got was pro truck, but i'm getting it on Friday, so please hold any anti-truck comments. Pictures will be up after I get it!

Shopping for a New Vehicle

Going against my better judgement - there are a number of things I'm looking for a new vehicle.

1. I'm looking for a truck. And by those who drive SUVs, those are not trucks. Those are SUVs. I'm looking for a Pickup Truck. A Nissan Frontier in fact. Now I know i'm not getting a "truck" in terms of 900hp with 1 millions lbs of torque and can haul a house. I'm not a SUV guy, but Wendy and I are tired of having 2 passenger vehicles when trying to pick up or move anything. Every once in a while, you just need a bigger vehicle. It seems to happen a lot more for us.
2. I'm potentially looking at new instead of buying used. The price difference between new and used in terms of the year range and model i'm looking at honestly aren't really that different. We're talking about $3,000 difference - trading for about 40,000 and 3 years (and loss of factory warranty) on the vehicle as well as a few features.

This truck is pretty close to what I want - except the color possibly.

What are the downsides of all of this?

Well obviously the payment, but what i'm sure any sane person would bring up the issue of gas prices these days. My only thought to that is that my commute to work is pretty short - and this is at least a mid-sized truck instead of a gigantic one. It is rated at 14mpg/19mpg highway, which I know isn't awesome, but based on my current driving habits, I drive much less than 10,000 miles a year. If gas prices do go up, I'm obviously going to be somewhat screwed or just have to drive as little as possible. Yes, I've considered leasing and i'm still thinking about it, just in case gas prices to shoot way up.

If I could get the same vehicle in diesel, I'd be all over it. Unfortunately, there are no midsized trucks or compact trucks that come in diesel in the US.

Does anyone have any serious thoughts about this? :)

New URL for Blog and Grand Theft Walrus

I've moved my blog to http://tonysblog.real-family.com/. The old URL will still work (I think permanently), so you don't have to change anything, this is more of an FYI.

I finally saw The Simpsons Movie. As I expected it wasn't going to be AMAZING - more like a longer, more dramatic version of a tv episode. Some of it drew on material from the late 80s/early 90s of the Simpsons (especially the Christmas episode). Anyhow, it is interesting to see how they still have this kind of staying power, but here is a screenshot of the funniest part of The Simpsons, which I can understand how it would it only be funniest to me.

I haven't the words....















And a screenshot from the game. I didn't play any GTA beyond GTA2, but I almost had to stop the treadmill I was laughing so much.

















New Song on Left Hand Side as well.

Best of 2007: Pop

I was actually watching MTV today because they there playing videos (correction, MTV doesn't actually play videos, turns out it was MTV Hits) - and every top pop video was about love lost or being separated. And I just don't mean the video, the lyrics for the most part matched. I'm glad I'm not that into current music - I'd be crying myself to sleep every night. Even right now I'm going to have to change the channel to not fall into a serious depression.

Maybe thats why there's so many emo kids out there - but they must listen to this in quiet as I'm sure they wouldn't be caught dead listening to this stuff.

Don't get me wrong, there was plenty of good music that came out this year, this just wasn't a showcase of it.

Did You Know This?

First of all, Henry V is freaking awesome. I wasn't much into Shakespeare at the ripe old age of 12 when I saw it for the first time, but stroke of luck my older brother Jason had just entered high school and in Marching Band played the music from this movie. I don't know if it is just because music and movies that you experience when you are young have a greater impact and hold greater meaning to you over time, but especially the music of Henry V I still listen to from time to time. I haven't seen the movie in a few years but I've got to pull out the DVD and watch it again.

But more importantly, why I post. Who else knew that Christian Bale was in Henry V? Keep in mind this movie came out in 1989. Even though he doesn't have a name in the movie (credited as boy) - I still remember his role clearly. Look for him at 1:43 in the youtube clip above during the famous St. Crispin's Day speech from Henry V.

And if you haven't seen Henry V, you are seriously missing out.

Updates In General - Random Post

I had a few weeks there where work got a bit of control time wise, but now I'm back to normal.

My sister moved to New York City fairly suddenly. Everyone wish her luck!

Something intesting technical wise that I've been working with is Windows Deployment Services, specifically for Windows XP. Vista is fairly easier to deploy using it, but XP is certainly possible. There's a real lack of documentation, and most people are going to get tripped up with many parts of it if used. This is supposed to be an upgrade for RIS, which honestly I felt was always too cumbersome to use.

I'll write a lot more about it, but WDS comes with a program called imagex, which creates .WIM files that are a lot like ghost images, but are file based, not sector based, meaning you can do things like reapply the image to a partition and keep the majority of your data. I know RIS had something like this, but were you able to create and use these files outside of RIS? :)

I'll write a lot more detail about how to use WDS later - I'll try to come up with the most detailed guide on how to use it with a single image that you could install on multiple HALs.

My boss Anthony recommended that I watch Primer. The movie is mainly dealing with time travel, but honestly I can't see any way that anyone could understand this movie the first time through without a guide. It is very smart - I can tell that, but I'm going to need a 3 or 4th time through. There's a lot of WTF??? going on, thinking that scenes must have been cut from the movie, but once I watched all of it, I realized that my brain must be in a for a world of hurt. I'm sure now the movie makes sense, but I'm going to really need to think about it. I read the movie was made for $7000, which even makes Clerks look a high budget movie ($32,000). But nothing in the movie looks wrong to me. It just goes to show a smart movie can be made for not that much cash.

Wow, I've never seen her look so 80s

That being said, Stevie Nicks is still awesome. But look at her hair!

On a side note, it seems a little sad to see her holding a baby as I just read that hse made a conscious decision not to have children (or get married) in order to keep Fleetwood Mac together.

Anyhow, she's awesome. She does some backup vocals for Vanessa Carlton on her new album. I could have picked out her distinctive voice in a heartbeat.

Boo to Subway

Just a warning to everyone - if you go to Subway like I do, and get their wraps because they are low in calories - they've changed the wraps without telling anyone!

The wrap itself used to be 110 calories - and its now 330 calories! Thats nearly 100 more calories than just getting bread. And for those watching carbs, you also might as well just get the bread, seriously.

Its a bad move for Subway, considering the majority of their promotions push about how they are a healthy alternative to fast food. Shame on them.

The Perfect Movie

For me, there isn't just one perfect movie. Some movies when I watch them are just so well executed and done so perfectly though, they just stand out to me. Even my favorite movies I know aren't perfect, but some movies - while not my one favorite movie to beat all other movies are so perfectly done I can't imagine them being any better. The shots are flawless - the music is amazing.

Lost in Translation is one of those movies. Some people may watch this movie and think it is boring, but the style, characters, the visual imagery, and the music make this movie amazing. It came out in 2003, so it might just now be starting to be forgotten, but if you haven't seen it I wholehearedly recommend it.

Why I Don't Like Sony

I refuse to knowingly buy anything from Sony. In fact, I think the only product that I have in my house is a dvd-writer in my desktop, and I felt bad in buying it. I'd rather buy a gas guzzling vehicle at this point than support Sony.

Here are the previous examples of issues i've had with Sony:
Romance and Cigarettes
Casino Royale

Sony likes doing things their own way. Their own standards - and all of their equipment works together great. But only with itself. Its been this way as far as I can remember. Beta vs. VHS. Mini-disc vs CD. Memory stick vs. Any other memory card Standard (SD, Compact Flash, xD, etc). Sony was on the losing end of all of these battles. Yes, they had limited success, but people that purchase their electronics are left out in the cold for any kind of interoperability with other products in the future. Sony even puts anti copy technology in their DVDs so that they have bad sectors in them and other issues so that may DVD players and computers can't even play them. And it doesn't even stop people from copying the DVDs. :)

And to top all this, Sony products generally cost substantially more. I'm not saying that they aren't quality products, they generally are good. I'm just not going to buy all Sony products for the rest of my life so that everything works together.

And now HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray. Blu-Ray is being backed by Sony primarily. I don't care of Blu-Ray has a larger capacity, and technically slightly higher quality of picture. If Blu-Ray didn't exist, HD-DVD would already be the standard and I'd already have the player. But with Sony being a movie studio now, some movies are going to ONLY be on Blu-Ray in the future. Some will only be on HD-DVD. Some will be on both. Blu-Ray players are in the ballpark of $300 at the cheapest. HD-DVD players are on special for $99, but are more commonly found at $200. I really think HD-DVD will become the standard (and I predict it will be) because.

1. Sony does not play well with others.
2. HD-DVD will cost less for the movies, players, and burners in the long term.

Sure, there are a lot of Blu-Ray players because of the Playstation 3, but if I were to buy a gaming console, it would be a Wii or possibly an XBox 360, never anything by Sony.

Suspend Your Disbelief - HOUSE PICTURES

Before I lose some friends here, I took the time to post a complete walkthrough of our new house.

Where can I find this?

For whatever reason, some artists have a slightly different version of a song that is released as a single, and then it is nearly impossible to find the often superior version of the song since it was never on an album. Whether it is the Voodoo Economics Remix of Desire from U2 (which is a nice change from the original, but I wouldn't call it superior), or in the case of the video linked here Only Love (The Ballad of Sleeping Beauty) from Sophie B. Hawkins. I literally have not heard this version of this song since high school (I graduated in 1996). Thanks to Youtube, I can at least see the video and hear the radio version of the song(and you can too). Sure - the album version which I have the CD for actually is pretty decent, but this version is way better. Hearing this seriously takes me back. Does anyone know where I can get a high quality digital recording of this song in this version?

Oh, and my parents are coming to visit on Tuesday, so I'm forced to do a good cleaning of the house (and i'll take pictures of every room before then) I'll finally come through!

Always Underpromise and Overdeliver

If I only listened to myself. As Mrs Smith pointed out, I fell back on my word about posting any pictures of the house. Here's picture #1. Once you walk in the front door, after the
entryway, this is pretty much the first thing you see. The living room isn't finalized yet as we are getting a nice flat screen once it is delivered As I clean up each room, you'll see another post with another room. Since we're seeing Harry Potter And the Goblet of Fire at IMAX tuesday night (at midnight), I've got a feeling no pictures will come tomorrow, but hopefully the day after that.