ThisBoyIsToast V4 >> October 2007 Archives

Update: The EFI 1.4 only applied to MacBooks one generation back and beyond. Mine is a 2.2 GHz so I was overlooked. On another note, after 3 hours Leopard installed without any hitch, knock on wood.

You know, I never played the Apple vs. PC game. I chose a PC because that was the first one I used and the only one I used regularly in university. I did do some minimal developing on an apple computer in the late 80s. But I stuck with the PC because, if need be, I could batter it into doing what I wanted it to do. From what I learned about Macs, it was harder and more dire to batter the pretty lil things into doing something.

So, i accepted that for certain uses the Macs would be better and for PCs would do it for other things. But honestly, I did believe that Apple probably did some things better than a PC. It took years for a PC to become an easy beast to network. Hell, even now my XP Pro home PCs lose standard networking setup for no good reason. I assumed that Apple would have paid attention to the failings of PCs and learned to bypass them.

But a recent kufuffle has me losing my (albeit not really invested) faith in the Apple kingdom. You see, a recent firmware update (EFI 1.4) broke the windows side of Bootcamp. Well, Bootcamp wasn't anything but Beta in the old OSX, i.e. Tiger and earlier, as in 10.4. The two major discussions on Apple Forums, state very clearly that this firmware update is affecting every user who had another OS installed on the Bootcamp. Surprisingly, this is still a small subset of the Mac world. And you might think that now that Leopard (got my copy today !) would fix this as they make Bootcamp legal and real in the OSX world. That would be fine, if for the fact that the update to the EFI was not a software related issue but in the actual hardware that affects the video drivers for the OS on the other partition. Go ahead, wipe your MacBook Pro and install Leopard and then setup Bootcamp with your legal copy of XP (I have one I can use, a real live paid for copy of XP) -- it won't work.

And Apple is not saying a thing about it yet. They didn't really have to until the weekend. They didn't officially support Bootcamp or the ways it interacted with the firmware. I just hope they do so soon as the, "We don't know and we don't care!!" attitude coming from their official support lines (we called, we have a real machine here in the office that requires XP to be running on the MacBook Pro) is not very encouraging. Dweebs. October 31 07

Would I pay $15 a cup for coffee? Well considering I pay almost $4 for a shitty starbucks latte concoction, it's not inconceivable. But it would have to be damn good (thanks ed).

Remember the days of making mixTapes and giving them to new friends and lovers to get them to understand you better? You probably moved on to mixCDs when the tech evolved. Now it seems kind of moot when you could just send them a stack of files. Or you could combine nostalgia with Make a Mixa.

Oooo, cumul.us is about using this whole popular community thingy to accurately (hopefully) predict the weather. I don't know how it can work but it cannot be any better than the current weather reporting in this city that says it's raining outside even when there might be a single cloud covering a 2 block radius.

Oh fuck this. I am just going to download the song and get it out of my head. p.s. rather than the song being take from an artist and adopted to the video, it seems Rhonda Stakich is the artist and they are not advertising the fact.

Wow. Just fucking wow. Hardformat is about the tangible in music design, the covers. You all know my fondness for making my own cd covers and part of my inspiration is just standing in front of the windows of indie cd stores. if the music industry dies, i am glad the indie scene will still keep such loveliness around. doubt me? check how many RECORD stores are in Toronto. (thanks edwin)

Oh heart
I know that you're doing your best
Riding in the backseat
Now you take a rest
And just leave it to me
I'll sing the songs
And you keep the beat

I have been humming Oh Heart by Jill Barber for about two months now. I am glad she lets me listen to it via the website.

Verizon, an american company providing wireless and internet access in the US, had an interesting idea of what "unlimited" meant.

Remember when Blockbuster went "no late fees" ? Rogers stores started by posting memos about how Blockbuster was being less than honest about those fees. If you didn't bring a movie back at all, they charged you the cost of the movie on your account. But if you finally did bring it in, they deducted that charge but for the "restocking fee". Seemed reasonable to me, the man who forgets to bring back movies for weeks on a time.

Rogers then implemented the "no late fees" of their own and even eliminated the restocking fee. Alas, that policy has been changed, and in a most underhanded way. Now, on the newest release, they have lowered the price by a dollar but added a $1.00 charge per day beyond the first day rental. Oh it's not a "late fee", it's an additional charge. Bring a movie back three days late and pay three dollars. Sounds like a late fee to me.

Oh ! He created the minipops, not those annoying kid singers but tiny ickle characters, but he also does Lollipops, no not candy.

So everyone is upset about a Giant garbage patch floating in Pacific. Actually they are upset about an article talking about it because, as far as I can find, the german article is the only source of it... no pictures, no news stories, no nothing. Lets see some pictures !!

"Macs are infallible, macs never crash, macs are so easy to use... blah blah blah BLAH. " After installing the update, the networking on the gunmetal beastie just went kaflooie. It used to find servers automatically, so I could connect to the two PCs with no trouble. Now? Manual connects required. It used to find my "favourite" wireless connection, pull the password from the "keychain" and connect by itself. Now? Two or three clicks on same network connection are required to make it work. Stupid monkey.

Finally. After years of searching for it, Mark Little's MyThemes.TV has the Untamed World theme. Be warned, it's a crappy .RA version.

In preparation for the main thing I am giving myself for The Big Four Oh -- ten years of re-learning how to draw -- I found out how many (empty) sketchbooks and moleskines I have. Hopefully after the provided period I can look as good as Mattias Inks. (via moleskine project via aaron's delish)

It is so weird seeing The IT Crowd - Series 2 already out on DVD in the UK considering we just finished watching the torrent releases a few weeks ago. I guess they knew the real medium for this show.

Oooo it's about switching but it's Ultimate. P.S How long does it take to stop obsessing over the cleanliness of the macbook? I have two cats and a cat hair free keyboard is impossible. On my PC i just don't care but on this brushed metal look, it is very apparent.

I suppose if I read enough of these 10 tips for new Mac users, switching from Windows, the best keyboard shortcuts will become apparent. While I never did any such thing on the PC, rescripting some keyboard functions seems like a good idea but simultaneously seems like a cheat.

Yo TBIT, pay attention here. Update: I guess not; the link is no longer on the main page so it doesn't look like there will be After Dark Festival bloggers posting on their site. But as for other sites...

Apple things done today. Installed Firefox and Acrobat., that is, after learning the difference of installing in OSX -- it's neat. Fiddled the hell out of the desktop settings and even found a neat halloween based desktop image. I renamed the computer to Jolly Roger after pondering Invisibles names on Wikipedia. Learned a few keyboard shortcuts but still need a few more basic ones. Things loved? The keyboard lighting up as the light in the room lowered & how pretty everything is. Things annoying me? Expanding large PDFs steals a lot of processing power even on this mega 2.2 DualCore -- not even noticeable on my much lower PC. I guess the prettier it is the harder it is to make happen. October 19 07

Yeah I have N.A.D.D. but it doesn't affect my life.... it is my life. I cannot wash the dishes without a break between sink loads to ... flick a few channels, to browse a page, to play a round of or to watch the latest effect on CSI. When is the last time I sat down and did something that lasted an hour or more, an hour or more concentrating? Ya got me.

Now that my printer decided to change printer profiles all on it's own (blues and greys come out green, browns are yellow, etc.) I am not printing my own postcard images. But now Moo is. No not you Marc.

This is very strange but in the same way I got excited about going to KungFu Friday, I am tres excited to go to Dungeon Siege at the Toronto After Dark fest !! Thanks Kent.

I grump enough about how badly things are done out there that it is nice to hear about a good example of customer service. And what makes it good? That it was done by a human in reaction to a human event. I've got something in my eye.

Last time I brought home a MacBook Pro it was for a brief period to make sure a new web-based service would work on OSX. It did so I brought the MacBook back. This time it's for an extended eval in order to get my skills on a Mac up to date. So the above MacBook Pro 15" is my baby for some time to come. A fresh out of the box, break the seal sort of deal. Weee.

With that said, I am going to get my ass in gear and update the look & feel for this blog, as I have been intending on doing for about 2 years now. The final design is settled upon but it's about getting around to it. Once done, I am going to make my primary home computer this MacBook as that is the only way to really get a handle on the ins and outs of this new environment. Oh Kingmob (my PC) will still be the main computer for gaming and other shite, but all the day to day computing (and blogging) will be done with this guy. And if I find the software, photoimage manipulating, photoast site building, CD cover production, game writing and networking learning.

First experience with turning it on was that "never really experienced before" First Time On setup of the laptop. It walks you through a basic wizard, which went easily with only one hitch -- the default wireless internet connection is just WEP -- my router required the setting 40char WEP. And what's up with the $ in front of the chars? But she is up there and running. The next few weeks or months will be fun.

While I read this Rogers Portable Internet bait and switch post I am not surprised, neither by the misleading and mistakes on the website nor the belligerent attitude of the customer service people. I work with Rogers everyday at work and only the simplest of tasks are done without trouble. But the more difficult or complicated tasks always get screwed up and take forever. Such is the life of a callcenter employee, not trained properly nor paid enough to give a shite about their job. I am just glad the incompetence has me getting free cable since I cancelled in April but still watch TV.

I thought so. While the novelty and amusement factor of Kottke Komments, Everything you love about Kottke.org, but with comments was funny, once the novelty wore off nobody kommented anymore.

I have recently collected a strange amount of music that I heard on TV, not music that was in a music video but music heard in shows, in commercials and in backgrounds. How do you find it? Well, via the Internet of course. I really should get around to making that mixCD.

New design is still sitting in limbo, not as bad as the stalled-delete-the-software limbo of PhoToast, but a "my routine interferes with me completing things" kind of limbo. The new design will involve having more words on the page than I do now, a redesign of intent as well as .... visual. I like writing, even when I do it badly (ala most of the time) and I get inspired by wordsy places like Verbalized. Simple, to the point and fun to read. But not journal-like... to be honest, I like randomalia in my reading unless I know the person personally. Then I want to read each drop of their life.

Tangent. Wordsy tangent. Why the fuck is my life so often like a Rube Goldberg machine of mishaps and accidents? It's as simple & annoying as placing a awkward shaped bowl against the microwave when I am washing dishes, which leads to a number of things leaning against it and ends up with somehow snagging an entire handful of clean forks with one plastic cover and sending them all spinning onto the floor. I always yell at the objects like it is their fault, as we know it is, and wonder how it could happen. As if I tried to setup things that way there is no way I could accomplish it. I swear that someday I am going to elbow a bag of bread and somehow collapse the apartment building next door.

But maybe it's just the universe trying to tell me that my current state of mind (sour, self-obsessed, pent-up, frustrated, on-edge, unable to smile for real) is affecting more than just my immediate environment but causing real woe in the world, ala butterfly in tokyo kind of damage. Talk about self-obsessed.

P.S. I am not talking about current as in "this hour" but days, weeks, months and most likely the entire last decade. It's like my entire reserves have been drained, as in those reserves that people recharge when they take vacations. Mine are empty, the furnace of my contentment is off and I don't know how to re-light the pilot.

Oooops, I didn't mean to rant or whine but sometimes the words come out. October 16 07

Hee ! MST3K does Jack Chick, or more explanatory, make fun of the Jack Chick anti-D&D comic tract. (via the wednesday knights)

Michael Pollan says,

Don't eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.”

Wow, that would lead to a lot of really boring nights eating out at restos. And to be honest, my grandparents and probably their parents, did not eat so well -- tons of fried food and buckets of salted this and salted that. Tons of veggies boiled into mush. Yuck. My father would balk at gyoza and there is no way I am giving that up. (via beatnikpad)

The teaser trailer for The Eye doesn't leave me as interested as knowing Alba was in it. Speaking of remakes of asian horror movies, anybody have any recent recommendations?

And here I thought that Pepsi Workers were supposed to seduce Coke workers into drinking their beverage, not attack them.

Hmmm, interesting how no matter how much you might consider yourself a D&D geek, you could not know about David A. Hargrave. Me, that is. Me as in I didn't know about him, not me as in I Am Him. Anywayz, game maker and Game Master. (brought via this post about a reallllly fun game, by way of Jeff)

Remember those old 80s-90s illusions with the fuzzy lines and squiggles that if you looked at just the right way, you could see boats and farm animals and unicorns? When I lost full use of my left eye, I lost the ability to see them. But I sure can have headache inducing fun with Right Brain v Left Brain illusion. She started going counter-clockwise but with a little concentration on her bottom most foot, I can now change it. Ow.

Kewl too. Kozyndan have a livejournal called autobiographical hentai. That name leaves something to be pondered... imagine a manga or anime about your own sexy life. Go ahead. I'll wait.

This link to A SteamPunk’s Guide to the Apocalypse made me think that there is another subgenre of post-apocalyptic fiction I wouldn't mind finding examples of -- an apocalypse that happens before our current time period, such as in Victorian times, the Renaissance, before Columbus discovers naked boobies in the carribean, etc.

Oi. People go grief stricken ga-ga over the death of Flower Whiskers, a meerkat on Meerkat Manor. I don't remember ever getting this emotional when I watched Untamed World. Sidenote: The comments are a hilarious read with some argument over Flower being associated with "thug" culture because she was from africa. man, kids today confuse me.

Must. Not. Fall. Asleep. I just had some leftover turkey dinner for lunch. So many caaaaaaarbs. Have lead weights on eyelids. Putting hot coffee below nose so when my head dips, the pain will wake me back up. Either that or I will look like one of those bobbing birds. October 09 07

I will not get too excited. I will not giggle like a little girl. I will not wet my pants. Serenity 2? Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease? (via girlhacker)

Koeler then returned the confused and speechless newborn to the bouncy seat, prodded his abdomen, and disappeared behind her own hands.

Guffaw.

Gawddamn it all !! Socks disappear and become coat hangers. Car keys become dust bunnies. Well you know where all those bones from "boneless skinless chicken" go?!?! Into MY boneless-skinless-chicken !! Every fucking time I bite into a piece I get a stab or a crunch. I even chipped a tooth biting into a chicken breast one time. I have always hated chicken bones including those yucky chocolate candy ones. October 05 07

So I was playing with a new version of PhoToast, which looks like half-assed crap right now so don't bother looking for a link, which would use static sized pages -- ala a scanned notebook. I was also using it as a method to learn some about the new MT4. Nice interface but they killed pop-up comments. And without them my new design style would not work. So, back to the "let's play with a new blog software" drawingboard. October 05 07

I just thought of a real cool birthday gift to myself for the Big Four-Oh. Take friday off. Rent an xBox 360 and Halo 3 for the (fabricated) long weekend and just play. Oh and maybe a break on friday nite for some beers. I think this is the perfect way to prove to my Mom & Dad that I am finally an adult. October 05 07

Everybody is linking to and wow-ing about the opening credit sequence from 'The Kingdom'. And with merit. It reminds me of the days of Imaginary Forces (remember SE7EN ?) when I stayed all the way through just to see who wow-ed me so many times over and over. It was nice to find a link talking about the company PIC who did the work as opposed to just the vid itself.

Amber Mac gets an odd email about software piracy comparing it with being anally rape. Oh wait, that is not what they mean by "rear ended" ? Oh, my bad. Anywayz, most people pirate software to make $1000 packages available to people who are lucky to afford the first grand for their PC. As I always say, who would have ever learned to use Adobe Photoshop if not for pirating. And that is why they pirate software. The majority of software pirates are NOT virus hackers seeking to get a giggle out knowing someone's pooter was crashed by something they labeled Microsoft Vista Ultimate CRACKED. The majority of them watch their releases carefully and make sure that the faux-releases are branded as evil and everyone knows. At least that is my experience as someone who uses pirated software exclusively. I have a feeling their survey said, "Would you like it if pirated software destroyed your computer?"

Side note. I own a copy of XP Pro. But I install a pirated copy from a DVD custom build that installs a ton of freeware & shareware utilities along with the XP Pro.

You know I don't need Doctor Who Dalek Webcam but it would go over SO well with my other desk toys such as Tachikomas and Godzilla and Hellboy.

I just left this as a post on YouGeek's page but man, did I want one of these Battlestar Galactica Warrior Jackets when I was a kid. I have a feeling they were not exactly this one that I saw in the back of magazines and comics -- i remember them being thicker and without so more of a cool factor. It was either that or a full stormtrooper costume that I actually ached to own, I wanted it so bad. I guess that is kind of a sign that I have grown up in that I don't actually want these now. Well not really really. I reserve that for those X-Men (grant morrison style) jackets I saw at the Con. I am soooo disappointed they don't have those on the web. Oh how you constantly disappoint me Innerweb. October 03 07

I am the first to admit, that gaming geeks without or with a girlfriend are pretty pathetic. For example, Mistress Chief.

Whatever happened to people doing the photoshoppy dezine goodness like the bottom images at Nando Costa's other page? I miss that style of the internet.

I finally sat down and watched our DLed copy of Bionic Woman , which I didn’t catch that night because of groceries and Mrs. Pritchard. I didn’t hate it but that doesn’t say much. It was typical TV, typical origin superhero stuff (to steal thoughts from Kent) but to be honest I am tired of the whole, “I am a freak,” reaction when people are made stronger, faster & better. Oh sure, she plays with her power a bit and has fun with her abilities by beating up a thug, but it’s all been done before. If BSG Guy was given the reigns of this, why didn’t he do the reinventing thingy he so successfully did with Battlestar? This is retread shite. With that said, I still didn’t hate it. I don’t expect that much from TV. I think it can get better. Note. Michelle Ryan was hotter in Jekyll; much hotter.

Life was much much better. Basic but interesting premise: cop is frame for murder (framed or just wrongly convicted?) and his fiesty lawyer gets him out with a new cop job, tons of money and a new (weird) attitude. He spent 12 years inside and it wasn't pretty. He was a cop in jail and got the shite beat out of him regularly. So he was moved to solitary and lived a solitary life of zen meditation and learning. Now that he's out and getting used to freedom again, he bounces between a fish-out-of-water attitude and zen responses to the situations. Cops don't like him, crooks don't like him & his druggie partner is set with catching him doing something the department can dismiss him for. It's new. It's not a retread.

Damian Lewis is one of my favourite actors whom I haven't seen much of. Of course, he made his name in my love-love war series, Band of Brothers, playing the ultracool and capable Capt Winters. He plays an odd & quirky Det Charlie Crews, which is appropriate considering his time away. Seeing how he deals with the conviction and the conspiracy that caused it, should prove intriguing. October 02 07

This is a fun list of Writing blunders or cliches to be avoided. But the one about Mary Sues makes me hesitate. Doesn't every author, one who at least ends up writing dozens of novels, fall back to writing themselves into a novel? I have always said that authors who start their career in writing doing things other than writing, write more interesting novels because they are relating a full life. But later on, when their own life is focused entirely on writing, their main characters often end up as writers... it's the only experience they currently have to draw on. But is that a Mary Sue or only if they are placing their author character in situations they would like to be in? October 02 07

I like the idea behind Risus: The Anything RPG. It's rules light and can be based on any genre. In the ol argument between fluff and crunch, i prefer the fluff as it is about the world creation. And Risus has some damn fun worlds created by it's fans, Anachromerica and Dao Sheng for example.

Neat !! Sam Jackson To Play Nick Fury in 'Iron Man, ala the Ultimates version of Nick Fury who's character drawing was basically Sam Jackson.

With Burma in the news everywhere, Marmy commented about how the news stations were all calling it Burma when they should have been saying Myanmar. I speculated that it was in reaction to the nasty activity, with world news orgs choosing to use a familiar (albeit older) name instead of the one the military leaders changed it to. It seems it's not that simple.

Every so often you have to do something out of the ordinary to shake your brain up. For me, staying up to the hours of a college student (i am normally now falling asleep at 11pm) for Flash in the Park was worth it. To be honest it was supposed to be in attendance of all of Nuit Blanche (ok, not all but a number of the exhibits) but dealing with 1am-3am drunken college kids & lines turned out to be more annoying than I expected. And getting back, even with 24 hr subways running, was long long long. I only hung around Rannie from about 2-3am but I didn't get home until 5am. Ick October 01 07