Yesterday I was promising how I would upload my annual widescreen/fullscreen comparison of The Two Towers once my video card is fixed. And today I discover that with the latest copy of WinDVD I can avoid a lot of the “green curtain” Matrix-like anomalies I was getting with ATI’s DVD player…which means I am able to present my comparison after all. (And which also means this entry cost me seventy bucks to make!)WinDVD’s screen grabs are also nicer with this new version, so I chose to present the comparison on its own page. The screen grabs are also rather large, but considering Andrew Lesnie’s great cinematography and the awesome work of Weta Digital I just couldn’t bring myself to compress the JPEGs too much.
Here it is, my Two Towers widescreen/fullscreen comparison (seeing as the full-screen DVD is not quite so dismissible as the DVD websites might have you think).
My original Fellowship of the Ring comparison can be seen here.
My nephew Joe is taking an international studies course in Ecuador. Here’s his latest message.
I learned some big news last night, from 
This article is a couple weeks old, but it’s an interesting read. Taking advantage of a security hole, Wired was able to 
It’s been a while since I wrote an update on my progress. A lot has happened, but I was too busy working on my computer to write about it. I got my wireless networking equipment at the end of July and it was the first weekend in August when my new computer really started to shape up. I had Windows 2000 on my EIDE drive and I loaded an OEM version of Windows XP Professional onto the newly installed SATA drives. On the second weekend I moved my DVD burner from my old computer to my new one, and thus the computer was pretty much complete.
Back at work again. Yay. Power was restored to most of suburban Detroit late yesterday, as far as I can tell; so I had to come in this morning and coordinate with the newly-online other departments. All the drinking fountains in the building now bear signs reading “The City of Dearborn has advised that all drinking water should NOT [be]* consumed until further notice.” 
Back at work again. Our building is still up and running, but the neighboring buildings remain offline. The drive in was ridiculous with lines for gas stations clogging up the right lanes. Troublingly, I didn’t see any fast-food places open, during my commute; and, once arrived, I was further disturbed to find the snack machines already depleted. Seeing my primary sources of food gone, I felt compelled to kill my two coworkers and store their severed limbs in the mini-fridge. Looking back, I may have overreacted. But, in my defense, I thought I wouldn’t be able to have a snack today.