By popular request, here are my wishlists. Some of the stuff listed might be available for cheaper elsewhere.
I also don’t mind used or refurbished products.
A few shopping tips:
Thanks!
Today is Day of the Ninja. Be extra sneaky today, and feel free to snap the neck of anyone who bothers you. In celebration, I will be making some paper shurikens and playing Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3.
Set your DVR, VHS, or Betamax for tomorrow at 9/8C for the two-hour Battlestar movie, Razor.
Also, check out the Flashbacks beforehand to make sure you’re caught up.
Blingo is a search engine that gets the same results as Google, but your first ten searches of the day can win you a prize. Prizes range from movie tickets to iPods. I joined back in July, and today I received an email with the following:
Matthew,
Your friend Jen just won a prize by searching on Blingo, and since you referred Jen, you win one too!
Your prize: Blingo Movie Ticket
See, Jen is one of my friends (I referred her), so when she wins, I win. Sweet.
Won’t you be my Blingo friend too?
When I logged into Facebook the other day I immediately noticed massive changes to the interface. The most notable is the Mini-Feed, which allows other users to see lots of your actions, including whose “Wall” you write on, what friends you add, what things you change on your profile, and what comments you leave on other people’s pictures.
While this new information allows hard core users to keep up with what’s going on, it’s a huge privacy concern, especially since these changes were unannounced and displayed actions from before the changes went live.
I immediately went to the My Privacy section of the Website to see what new settings there were for the Mini-Feed. Not a single one.
A lot of users and a lot of other bloggers made a big deal about it, and now, according to an open letter from Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s programmers have been working ’round the clock to implement new privacy settings, which they released today.
Somehow we missed this point with News Feed and Mini-Feed and we didn’t build in the proper privacy controls right away. This was a big mistake on our part, and I’m sorry for it. But apologizing isn’t enough. I wanted to make sure we did something about it, and quickly. So we have been coding nonstop for two days to get you better privacy controls.
While this was a big mistake, I applaud Facebook for a quick turn-around. It took Dell a month to recall those exploding batteries, and it took even longer for Apple to admit that the new MacBooks had issues with discoloration, mooing, and randomly shutting down.
Besides, Facebook is still better than MySpace.
Oh. Oh God. Oh God!
Stargate SG-1 is finally ending in June of next year. It lasted ten years. Next Generation only lasted seven. In fact, SG-1 is the longest running sci-fi show in American TV history (surpassed by Dr. Who, I’m sure). I guess they really are closing Cheyenne Mountain.
The 200th episode just aired last Friday, and it was really good. They had all kinds of sci-fi references, and they parodied their own material and actors as well. To think this show was cancelled by Showtime, only to be picked up by The Sci Fi Channel for five more years, twice as long as it had run.
Stargate Atlantis will continue, with numerous guest appearances I’m sure. I think the stories of the two shows are going to intertwine a lot more.
And this announcement comes so soon after the story about Stargate creator Dean Devlin working on two more sequels to the original Stargate movie.
Honestly, the series ended after the Season Eight. The had defeated the bad guys, the slaves were free, and everyone was was happy. But rather than end the show, they changed half the cast, including Richard Dean Anderson. I like his replacement, Ben Browder, but it’s just not the same without RDA. And the new villans are a lot like the old ones, just more powerful.
Don’t get me wrong. I love the show, but its time has come.
I was planning on posting some videos that I’ve been watching, and since Tuesdays are YouTube Tuesdays, I decided to go ahead and wait until today. Most of these I’d classify as Not Safe For Work.
Due to technical problems I couldn’t embed the videos. Click the big, strong links.
The first video that I must share is Adicolor Pink. I know it’s a few months old, but I just found it and I can’t stop watching it. The song, the imagery: fantastic. I downloaded the album that the song is on (Awake Like Sleep by Greg Weeks) and it’s pretty decent. And no, I don’t like Pink just because of the girl (as I have been accused). If I was just interested in that, I’d be recommending White.
These videos were made independent of each other for a viral Adidas marketing campaign, with varying results. I rank them as such: Pink, Yellow, Black, Green, Blue, White, and Red.
While we’re on Star Wars, you might as well check out Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager Episode One and Two.
This is one of several Mac commercial spoofs, including Upgrading, Security, Portability, Performance, and Networking. Warning: I don’t want to start a holy war here, but some of these videos include Linux bashing.
I am occasionally emo, so take this not as bashing, but as tough love. And yes, I know the song is annoying the first, say 100 times you hear it.
The original video that I wanted to use got deleted, but the above is a good one too.
Witness the glory of Family Guy‘s Quagmire.
I don’t want whatever she’s on.
Just eight months until the new CGI Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie comes out. The folks at Apple have the new TMNT trailer. The animation looks very good.
Writer/director Kevin Munroe is not well known, but the creators of the Turtles (Eastman and Laird) have writing credits as well. Eastman and Laird’s original comic was darker than the late-80s/early-90s TV show, and according to the (PDF) press release, the movie will be “slightly grittier” than the first three Turtle movies.
I don’t remember the first three that well, except that they changed actresses for April at least twice, and that Vanilla Ice was in the second one (much to my delight—at school there was an ongoing M.C. Hammer/Vanilla Ice debate. I was a member of the latter camp at that time). Oh, and the first one (which I think I own on VHS) had that great rap song during the credits. I so remember all those lyrics.
Wow, I just remembered the casette tape I probably still have that featured the Turtles singing. As I recall, there were a few good songs and a few that, even at that age, I could identify as crap. I must give it a listen.
Of course we also have the Transformers movie to look forward to (which opens a week after the Turtles movie does).
Also, the rumor I heard a few months ago has been kind-of confirmed with IMDB listing Matt Damon as playing James T. Kirk in the upcoming Star Trek movie (slated for 2008), which is set during Kirk’s time at Star Fleet Academy.
Hollywood continues its trend of producing remakes and sequels, but in these cases I welcome it.