Larry, Moe, & Curling

Posted on February 23 2002 by Mickey
    Well it seems like the big thing at the Winter Olympics now is to make fun of curling. This is supposedly great fodder for comedy shows and humor articles, to point out how silly and boring curling is. Like most clichés, I’ve gotten tired of it fast, and the constant repetition of this increasingly unfunny observation is really starting to annoy.
    Why pick on curling? It’s only shuffleboard with some flourishes. And seriously, is it any sillier than a bunch of guys skating around trying to hit a black pill with sticks? I remember hearing these same complaints when World Cup soccer made it stateside; everybody had a comment on how boring and stupid soccer was, oblivious to how stupid baseball and football and basketball and golf and pretty much any athletic activity would look to the uninformed viewer. All these complaints do is reinforce the stereotype of the stupid American; so, with that in mind, please shut up about curling, okay?
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Comcast.net

Posted on February 20 2002 by Mickey
    I guess my transition from @Home to Comcast.net truly is underway. I’ve started to get porn ads in my Comcast.net e-mail account and my cable modem has already lost connection twice.
Posted in Gadgets, Tech | Leave a comment

Privacy

Posted on February 19 2002 by Mickey
    I’ve really been bothered by some Javascript errors IE and Netscape were reporting. It turns out they weren’t even my errors. They were errors from scripts I got from Extreme DM and Stats4All. The errors from Extreme DM were apparently caused from improperly copied code (which has been re-pasted in), while the errors from Stats4All were from badly written code (that IE just does not like).
    I removed the link to Stats4All so far, but the link for Extreme DM remains (now that it works again). Both these services collect information on people who visit my webpages. Some people might consider this an invasion of privacy, so I guess now would be a good time to address my privacy policy. Simply put, I use these services out of curiosity. They provide useful browser information which helps me in creating web pages; they provide information on popularity of certain sections of the site; and I also enjoy finding out what kinds of international visitors might find their way here. My accounts with these services are public, and if you click on the icons below (currently just the Extreme DM icon [and not “below” but on the homepage]) you will be able to see the same information I see.
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Blogwork III

Posted on February 17 2002 by Mickey
    A little last minute adjustment before I power down. I added some color to the scrollbar.
    Being up a whole day now, the Site Mach IV (or is it VIII or even XII) is starting to grow on me. But I have to admit, every time I check it out I’m suddenly hungry for burgers, fried chicken, pizza, Chinese food, nachos, spaghetti, tacos, and/or beer.
    But then again, that’s pretty true all the time. [12:46 AM]
    Update: A couple more tweaks: a little drop-shadow for the logo, and I also narrowed the filmstrip of foodstuffs. [3:59 PM]
    Update: Hey, I tore myself away from work on my homepage to update another page. My Diary now has new entries. [11:31 PM]
    Update: Here’s a fat link I just found: The Slowinski Art Gallery’s Collection of Fatties.

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Blogwork II

Posted on February 16 2002 by Mickey
    Hey! At last, I got my blog to show up in Netscape!
    (It works in Netscape 6 at least.) [12:24 AM]
    Update: I can’t believe I’m still up working on this site. I also can’t believe I spent almost all this time getting lost in all the <TABLE> tags. I was so eager to get the page on-the-air that I did all my edits and revisions live. I hope no one was watching me because for several hours my links table was everywhere but where it should be.
    But most of the page is complete. I managed (or remembered) to add the usual links to the bottom, plus the search engine. I still need to figure out where to restore my webcam shots. That will probably have to wait till tomorrow though. It’s much too late, and there’s nothing good on TV now anyway. [4:23 AM]
    Update: There. Finally found a way to fit the webcam shots back in.
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Blogwork

Posted on February 15 2002 by Mickey
    My new and “improved” homepage blog has only been up a day and I’m already thinking of changing it. A long while ago I toyed around with Greymatter but I only got it running this morning, so it’s possible I might switch over to it from Blogger once I thrash out a decent looking template. (I like the concept of running my blog right from my site, rather than going through Blogger.) I’m still not crazy about these colors either. Darker colors make a page unreadable but lighter colors make it look…well…gay. (I’m afraid other short fat guys will laugh at me.)
    I also will probably be taking down my Oscar survey [see below]. The service which runs the poll has resorted to using pop-up ads — and that, dear friends, is a no-no around here! I should probably teach myself how to run surveys off my own site (since it has that capability) but that would require reading and research. I’ve already got my hands full learning enough CSS to gorp up my page in Netscape. [2:30 PM]
    Update: Well, my page has changed again, for the second time in two days. Gone are the pastel colors, replaced by bold manly colors. I also added a new background strip, to match the food-based theme of this site. I still have a few more tweaks and some more links to add, but I really think this could be the new look…
    Yeah…I know…I said this yesterday…
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Blogger

Posted on February 14 2002 by Mickey
    After much trial and error, it is quite possible this could indeed be the new look of the SFG Online homepage. Most recently, I tried to fashion my site after Something Awful, but of late I’ve been blatantly ripping off ideas from Noah Grey.com and Glish.com. I’ve also been toying with some CSS, from a book I bought; but not enough to really speak of.
    Anyway, I hope you like the new look. The colors might change somewhat, but this could pretty much be it…
    (No comment on how bad it looks in Netscape.)
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Fat Tuesday 2002

Posted on February 13 2002 by Mickey
    One would expect me to write a big food-based message here, it being Fat Tuesday. But in fact I did not buy any pakczis today and I\’m more interested in today\’s Oscar nominations than in Mardi Gras.\r\n    The unofficial SFG poll did not quite forecast the five best picture nominees. True, Fellowship of the Ring and A Beautiful Mind were accurately predicted. But the other three nominees were beat out by Memento, Shrek, and Monsters Inc. (I guess I’m partly to blame for not remembering to segregate the latter two to an Animation category.) Gosford Park, In the Bedroom, and Moulin Rouge, which actually did get nominated, only got one vote a piece.
    The Fellowship of the Ring is definitely the popular favorite here and on many other Internet sites, but I still think A Beautiful Mind will actually win.
    Which brings us to our next poll.
    This time I’m asking three questions, so I’ve chosen to put it in a separate window…
Take the three-part Oscar survey
    Update: Unfortunately, this survey will probably cause some pop-up ads to appear on your screen. Sorry about that; and I’m in the process of finding a new provider for any future surveys.
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A.I.

Posted on February 13 2002 by Mickey
    I’m reminded that Steven Spielberg’s A.I. is coming out soon on home video. It’s unfortunate this movie did not get the response it deserved. I found it one of the most interesting and thought-provoking films of 2001; flawed, but still well-made, and deserving of more credit than it was given. Its poor box office should not reflect on the film’s quality.
    I would suggest it has more to do with Warner Bros’s misguided marketing campaign. The logo of the movie emphasized some kind of “childlike tale of wonder”, and even the name of the film harkened back to Spielberg’s movie E.T.. This was unfortunate since it engendered expectations that this was some kind of sequel — expectations the movie did not and would not fulfill. The movie had much more to say than following some boy’s adventures.
    The title’s similarity to E.T. got me wondering. Maybe the two-letter titles were a code. Just like some believe the “HAL” 9000 computer is Kubrick’s swipe at “IBM”, since the letters H.A.L. are one letter away from I.B.M.
    So what do we get if we do the same to E.T.?
    “F.U.”!
    I wonder if Kubrick considered that as an A.I. working title.

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Oscar Predictions

Posted on February 12 2002 by Mickey
    One would expect me to write a big food-based message today, it being Fat Tuesday. But in fact I did not buy any semi-traditional pączki today and, since this is the Movies page (I mean, category), I’m more interested in this morning’s Oscar nominations than in Mardi Gras.
    A casual viewer to the site could guess the movie I’m rooting for is The Fellowship of the Ring. It seems a natural, since the movie is about short fat guys trying to save the world. But I’ve been in love with Tolkien’s book since junior high school and Peter Jackson’s movie is an impressive piece of epic filmmaking. Sadly, I strongly feel that my favorite movie will not win. Instead, the Academy will play it safe and give all the big awards to A Beautiful Mind.
    I really shouldn’t say anything bad about A Beautiful Mind, since I have not seen it. But it strikes me as the kind of movie that the is tailor-made for the Oscars: a big name actor, effecting a false accent, in an inspiring tale of his struggle with a debilitating disease. How many times have we seen that? How many times has the Academy congratulated itself for making that? How many copies of that sit on dusty video store shelves while we continue to rent the movies that are popular favorites? Movies like Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark; movies that should’ve won big but weren’t deemed “important” enough.
    So wouldn’t it be cool if the Academy threw away the playbook and voted for the popular favorite? They’ve done it before on occasion, so I think it would be great to see it again now.
    But, like I said, I really shouldn’t criticize a movie I haven’t seen. And I might force myself to see it, maybe this weekend, so I can check out the competition.

Update: I discovered a cool little comments tool.
This is to check out if it works.
If it works great. If it doesn’t, then feel free to send me a complaint.
No wait. That won’t work out.
(By the way the weblog that gave me this [comments] idea is run by the Internet’s youngest webmaster, Robbie Grace Cripps.)   [6:39 PM]
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