Green Scissors

I am, admittedly, not the easiest person to shop for come Christmastime. There just aren*t that many things I want most of the time, so it*s difficult for me to make a list for people. Now, my parents seem to come up with incredibly thoughtful gifts in spite of my inability to help them out too much. This year they outdid themselves in a couple of very different ways.

On the good side, they gave me a wonderful book called Faces of Man (I think that*s the title) that has a series of photos of people and families from around the world. It was originally published in the 70s and is really fascinating. It*s particularly interesting because when I opened it I was immediately reminded of an exhibit at Millenium Park in Chicago. After flipping through the pages a bit I saw the notes they had each put inside the front cover, and both of them mentioned that they were reminded of this book when they visited Millenium Park with me during a visit over the summer. It was really neat to see how our minds all made the same connection, albeit from opposite starting points.

Equally thoughtful was one other gift, which they recognized the necessity of when I mentioned over Thanksgiving that I needed to pick up a tire pressure gauge for my car. Given that this is a $1.00 item, I managed to scrape up my pennies to take care of the purchase myself in the meantime. However, mom and dad didn*t know this, so they decided to get one for me and send it along with my other gifts. Being who they are, however, they decided that I needed something more. Enter the Talking tire pressure gauge. Actually, this one is a BILINGUAL talking tire pressure gauge. Why, you ask? Probably for the same reason that they picked up a Perfect Pancake Maker last year - again, based on a chance comment I*d made a few months previously.

I come from a strange people, and I wouldn*t have it any other way.

Last day at my “old” job today. I*ve had several last days and this one easily qualifies as the most surreal. I have gone around the company (big place too) and said goodbye to all the people I have worked with for the last 4 years who I wanted to touch base with. None of those folks are with my current group. my current group has me wrapping up projects and submitting access requests for them in my final hours here. Truly bizarre.

The whole situation is made weirder by the fact that its the holidays and the whole coprporate campus feels like a college on winter break.

Anyway. Another hour or so and I will vanish softly into the night. there is a party next Thursday night with a bunch of folks that I used to work with. But outside a few awkward moments with my director this morning, nothing is happening here to indicate to the world that my cube will be empty come Monday.

All in all, a very strange day to be me.

On a completely unrealted note, this post marks the achievement of a minor goal. Averaging at least one post per day for the month of December. Granted it went in fits and starts, but the posting is on an upward trend

I am a child of 80*s television. G.I. Joe, ThunderCats, He-Man, M*A*S*H* re-runs, the Cosby Show, etc. So I could not be happier to pass on this news.

OSCAR winner Steven Spielberg will bring one of the toy phenomenons of the 1980s to the big screen - generating a booming adult collectors market for the robots known as Transformers.

The director has announced he will follow next year*s The War of the Worlds with a live-action tale of the mechanical heroes who disguise themselves as cars, trucks and jets.

What will it look like? Good question. Maybe something like this.

2004 saw a lot of digital media battles fought and for the first time those battles spilled over into the homes of average consumers. Most notable was the Recording Industry Association of America*s (RIAA*s) quest to stamp out file sharing by forcing ISPs to turn over their customers information and then suing those customers (learn more).

It wasn*t hard to predict that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) wouldn*t be far behind in adopting draconian tactics to maintain the status quo. One of my favorite technology voices Cory Doctrow has written an article for Popular Science which doesn*t have any revolutionary news but sums up what is happening with the movie industry quite nicely.

Think of all the things you can do with a track from a CD now that you couldnï¿œt do 10 years ago: rip it to your laptop, turn it into a ring tone, send it to your friends, burn a mix. Many of these capabilities are illegal, and the recording industry has tried to stop them all, but theyï¿œre out there, challenging the old rules and feeling their place in the market. Innovators have tried to enable the same flexibility for the DVD. Last year 321 Studios released software that let you back up prerecorded DVDs, but the MPAA sued it into bankruptcy before a court could rule on whether or not the product was legal.
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The VCR exists because a behemoth with deep pockets stood up for it. But today, only easily crushed upstarts are willing to take chances, and the big tech firms are all in the entertainment business themselves. Sony recently bought MGM to secure content for Blu-Ray. Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple and of the animation studio Pixar, told studio heads and tech leaders in a private meeting that studios shouldnï¿œt release anything for the DVD-HD format until they get a promise that recorders will never appear in a PC.

And just to really spit in the eye of the media industry, Entertainment Weekly named DJ Danger Mouse*s Grey Album its Album of the Year despite the fact that it was created in violation of antiquated copyright laws.

So what does 2005 hold? More of the same in all likely hood. In case anyone from the aforementioned industry groups read this I*d like to point a couple of things out.

1) I will not be buying any music through traditional channels in 2005. I will not be purchasing CDs from Borders or the mall*s smattering of music stores. This is not because I*m stealing your product from a P2P network. Its because your product is over priced and I can find quality music much cheaper by simply looking up artists from CD Baby or better yet just going to the artist*s site and downloading the tracks leagally.

2) If you would like for me to buy your products you are going to have to come to me. Sell me non-DRMed content at a reasonable price and you will get my money. iTunes is great but the restrictions placed on the system make it not worth the effort. Let*s try something like what Stuart Davis is doing. Now, I know that you won*t do this because a system like that only benefits the artist and not the multi-billion dollar company running the lawsuits. But then, you*ve always said that you were just protecting the artists right?

Ok, enough soap-boxing for this morning. Instead of reading, why don*t you go check out Joe, Ryan, Shannon, Front, Scott, and Brad. They are all happy to offer you good music at reasonable (or free!) prices without all the hassle of a lawsuit.

Well, its been a week since any posts were made and today I break the silence with exciting news. As I mentioned earlier I am leaving my job as of tomorrow. Now, when I put in my notice I had nothing lined up. The one job I had been close to chose another candidate. I got that news before I told my current company I was leaving so life was going to get very interesting what with no job and all.

Monday I get a call back. Seems the candidate of choice declined their offer so they would like to talk to me again. Tuesday was the interview and Tuesday evening I was offered the job. I will be starting on Monday morning. In the space of 48 hours everythign has changed. I have gone from an unemployed fellow looking for a job in a market that is a bit oversaturated with guys like me to having what is, quite frankly, my dream job.

So for all those who were worried about it (both of you) I am happy to report that life has proven to me once again that positive attitude pays dividends and that some days it truly is better to be lucky than good.

I know, I know. I promised RSS and a search engine some time ago. Well, I*m back on the pony again. I have gotten the page titles modified to be more descriptive which was a key for getting the search engine to be effective. I have also added the RSS feeds but need to write a piece to convert the BB code in the posts before they are rendered in RSS.

Mostly, I just like to write posts where I sound all official and webmaster-y. So keep an eye out for new features and be sure to mock my pompous posts

The day approaches! May 6, as I mentioned earlier. Today comes a review of an early screening from Ain*t It Cool with links to some good stuff including a short clip (note: this has been slashdotted and is currently unavailable. if anyone has a mirror site let me know!) Also linked is some of the concept art which also includes a handy countdown clock (coming soon to Green Scissors as well).

So what is the verdict on the movie? Well, read the review and find out…

My biggest fear going into this film was Mos Def playing Ford Perfect. While his first few lines fall flat, once Arthur (Martin Freeman) and he go into the bar where Ford tells Arthur about the impending doom of planet Earth he fits comfortably into the character. Although there are a couple more spots where he falls a little flat, that*s nothing a little over dubbing won’t fix.

Warwick Davis’ Marvin the depressed android steals the show. His perfect monotone cadence and pitiful attitude make for a great contrast for the rest of the Heart of Gold’s upbeat mood.

So posting frequency is way down on the site. But with good reason I assure you.

After 5 years with my current company, I put in my two weeks notice yesterday. Things are understandably a little hectic what with the holidays and my pending unemployment.

You heard that right folks. For the first time in my life I am leaving a job without an offer in my pocket. So I am off to re-invent myself as a business analyst. Should be an interesting challenge and its more than a little scary. But I am an optimist and I gotta believe that things work out the way they do for a reason.

The whole experience has reinforced something that I am always aware of but sometimes take for granted. I have a collection of people in my life who are truly amazing. Without the support I have gotten from my parents, kids, friends, and most of all my fiance I couldn*t do this. But when I started talking about it all of them said “go be happy! you will find a job no problem!”

So a quick thanks to everyone who has been there for me through all of my good and bad. I won*t let you down.

Completely ripped this off from Eric Burns again, a guy who*s starting to creep up the ladder in my mental list of interesting thinkers. He*s not quite up to Richard Harter status yet, but he*s getting there.

Anyway, this quote of Eric*s summarizes a definition of geekdom pretty effectively:

“…I find a geek to be a person who suffers under the impression that role playing games, comic books, science fiction, computer expertise, Mystery Science Theater, video games, the Muppets, the Society for Creative Anachronism, UFO clubs, web site creations, anime, Myth II, most cartoons and South Park are cool. If someone has more than three of those items on a list, they*re a geek.”

*counting* Okay, so out of his 14 items, 9 of them are pretty descriptive of me. Which is fine - like him, I don*t consider geek to be a pejorative. Mind you, this may be because I enjoy clinging to the obviously incorrect notion that the things that I like actually are cool.

Eric Burns of Websnark had a post on November 19 that references something he wrote on November 19, 1999. THAT post explains why 11/19 is such an important day for him. One of the most well-written pieces I*ve seen in a long time. Here it is.