Alexander The Great

The man may have been great or maybe he wasn't. I am offering no opinion on that count. Instead, I offer my two cents on the movie.

The movie was visually beautiful. The sound was a bit distracting, but that may have been the theatre I was in. The movie suffered from "too" problems.

(1) It was TOO long by a solid hour
and
(2) There were TOO many man-on-man moments. I don't care if someone is gay or not but I don't really like when a film goes out of its way to show something like this because it shouldn't be noticed.
and
(3) The acting was TOO amateurish. It was spotty at best. The actors' accents were mixed and that was distracting as well.

See Alexander, but expect to be underwhelmed.

In other movie news, National Treasure was entertaining. In fact it was wildly entertaining if you suspend your belief in all that is common sense. The movie is absurdly silly and has continuity gaffes galore but, unlike Alexander, I had a good time. Ultimately, isn't that why one goes to the movies?

-- Eric

Too much turkey, bitch.

I ate too much turkey. That's the traditional Thanksgiving lament, and I am no exception. I'm still sick, not that anyone cares, but since I have a blog I get to tell the world. Like it matters. Hah.

I have some computer equipment and software for all platforms that I'm trying to sell cheap if anyone out there wants it. I have software for all platforms, hardware for all platforms, and a number of computers. Surf to www.darsys.com/forsale.html for the full list. As I state, I am taking reasonable offers. I'd rather sell it cheaply to someone I know than deal with e-bay.

Other than that, it's been an uneventful week. I've spent a ton of money upgrading software to work with my new G5. I've had to upgrade a number of expensive packages, pay additional shareware fees, buy new software and hardware. Quite a few hidden costs to migrate from an OS-9 based G4 to an OS-X based G5. Not sure that I'd recommend it to anyone. Props to my friend Tom who's been more than helpful and patient in helping with this ghastly process.

Have a great day. Eat Turkey.

-- E

Trumped!

Wow. Trump filed for bankruptcy for his casino operations. Why is this in my blog? I'll tell you why.

I know a bit about casinos because (A) I am a gambler and (B) I own stocks in lots of casinos. The one thing I can tell you is that all well-run casinos make money. Lots and lots and lots of money. This tells me that Mr. Trump is not a good manager. Trust me, anybody with an ounce of common sense who has some experience gambling could run a profitable casino. It's hard not to be a profitable casino. Really hard.

If you gave me $100 million dollars and told me to return $110 million by the end of the year running a casino, I could do it easily. I bet I'd pocket a good $10 million or more after that as well. It's all percentages. Steve Wynn and George Maloof have done it superbly. You don't build billion dollar mega-resorts because people come and win. People lose.

Just because you're famous doesn't mean you're smart. I think Trump's bamboozled people for a long time. He's just a jerk. He's great at real estate, but keep in mind this is not his first bankruptcy. I just wanted to rant about this.

-- Eric

Bronchitis

Hi:

I've been conspicuously absent for awhile. I went to the NIFS show and contracted bronchitis -- in fact dozens of people who went to the show all have it. It's rather unpleasant. Then, I left town again this weekend for another business meeting. Flying with bronchitis is a horrible, horrible experience. Flying to Minnesota with bronchitis is just stupid. I was getting better and now I'm not. I have nobody to blame but me.

Three weekends in a row away from home. I'm tired of travelling and think I'm done until the end of the year. At least I hope I am.

-- E

I was thinking more about my previous 'friends' post. I want to edit it or delete it and start over. What are people's opinions of bloggers who change past posts? (I mean besides fixing broken URLs and typos). Comments appreciated.

The tickle in my throat....

.... is most irritating. I'm just back from a business trip to Lost Wages, Nevada and I think I'm getting sick. Ugh. Ecinacea time. I hope I spelled that right. I know nobody cares, but it was time for a blog post.

I notice this post title sounds like porn.

I've been reading a lot lately.

I wonder if they'll name the new hotel after me since I apparently paid for it with my losses.

I could develop a serious gambling problem if I lived in Vegas.

-- E

iSight Camera

Damn. I finally hooked up and used my iSight. It's awesome. Everybody run out and get one right now. I tested it with my friend Tom ::waves:: for a few minutes but he had to go do homework. Eeeeewwww.

Just as I was getting ready to sign off, I get an IM from Josh who also has an iSight. Wow. Josh, who I haven't seen in over two years, and really haven't had any meaningful communication in at least three years. It was interesting, that's for sure. We showed off each other's pussies* and played around -- showing off things around the room, papers, flyers, computer parts, etc. It was kind of fun, even though it probably sounds silly. It made me realize how much I miss him. Or, as he would say, cool beans.

I still hate OS-X because Apple has sacrificed form over function. Sure, it's beautiful to look at it but it's not nearly as intuitive as it used to be. The Mac's single best feature has always been if you wanted to do something, you just did what came naturally (drag, drop, click, etc) and Apple, in one evil, fell swoop has taken away a lot of that. Things just don't work they way you expect any more. OS-X is also unspeakably sluggish with some applications, and this machine I have is blisteringly fast. Other applications don't behave that way so I'm not sure what that's about.

By Tuesday evening, I will be making a very special post about the Florida Panthers to my mailing list. Normally, I only post to my mailing list but I'm going to post a little teaser here as well as the appropriate Usenet group. It's being posted solely for your amusement.

I still think Rob Barry's got a cool blog. Him and Wil Wheaton keep me entertained with their blogs. I know there are many blogs, and I've peeked around but there's nothing to top the visceral excitement of being part of someone else's life when you feel like you know the person albeit from afar.

-- Eric



* Get your mind out of the gutter, that's our CATS dammit :)

A sad day for memories of my past...

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/08/25/Citrus/Scouts_sell_land_to_w.shtml

Camp Lone Oak -- where I spent several summers and collected some very fine memories is going to be no more.
It's sad as your childhood memories are damaged over time. I am saddened by this, but it is, perhaps, the price of progress. No, I don't believe that. Ah, I do miss my days in Boy Scouts. It was a great thing, and I think everyone should be part of Scouts. Yeah, they're an intolerant overly-religious bunch, but they teach some good stuff. I still approve of them as a whole.

-- Eric
(Thanks to Scott Labay for sending this to me)

A sad day for America....

Ugh. Well Shrub won. It proves you can never underestimate the stupidity of Americans as a group. Or, as my history teacher Ronald Nieves used to say, "The Masses Are Asses" -- and how right he was.

For the people who voted for four more years of insanity, I hope they remember that as their sons and daughters are needless killed in a pointless war over Iraq. I hope they remember that as the economy slips into the tanks again. I hope they remember that as their job is shipped overseas. I hope they remember that as their personal freedoms are slowly stripped away in the guise of "homeland security"

President Bush will continue his policies that make America and Americans targets wherever in the world we go. If you think it's not true, put a shirt on it with a picture of Bush and walk through the streets of almost any European capital. See how well loved you are. Less than six months ago MacLean's magazine polled Canadians -- even they don't have a favourable opinion of us. Lovely.

The world is not a safer place today. Osama BinFuckWit -- the guy who really caused this state of affairs -- is still at large. Saddam, though certainly a scumbag, is in jail -- but at what cost? America has no right to be in Iraq nor does it have the right to be the self-appointed Police State of the world.

America is going to become a very conservative State. Individual rights are going to be crushed and come under the provenance of the far right religious fringe. If you're gay, Muslim, or in any other minority, you better hide. This administration doesn't like you and doesn't believe all men are created equal. Wait until there Supreme Court is padded with more conservatives and the balance shifts. Goodbye Roe v Wade (remember Bush's comments in the debates if you think this isn't out the door).

As George Orwell said in Animal Farm, "Some men are created more equal than others" and that's who is in charge of this formerly fine country for four more years. We are supposed to elect a president who will do the best job for the entire country, and not a president who will do the best job for some of the country and sadly small-minded people did just that.

You, dear reader, are entering a very dark chapter of American history and even world history. If you didn't vote for Bush at least you can be proud of that. If you aren't an American, please don't judge all of us harshly: we're not all self-centered idiots who have no clue that these is a whole entire world out there.

May God Have Mercy On Our Soul <-- I bet Shrub would like this closing line

-- E

Which Asshole?

As someone asked me today, "Which asshole are you voting for?" That pretty much sums the election up. Yeah, you all know I'm voting for Kerry because I remain convinced that Bush Jr will go down as one of the worst presidents this nation has ever had. However, I don't really like Kerry so much either. This year marks a big change, in a number of positions I am voting Republican because the Democrats have put forth a number of really scummy candidates (especially Castor). And as much as I hate Shrub Jr, I really like Jeb so far -- he's done a good job mostly. Sure, he's no Lawton Chiles but he's decent and means well.

I am not voting today.......... until after work :) The line this morning was impossible and there was nowhere to even park. If you don't vote today, don't complain tomorrow.

-- Eric, who really wishes his blog was as cool as Rob Barry's. His Blog has a certain Je ne sais quois about it.

A weekend in the life of?

All sorts of stuff to say. First, I went to Halloween Horror Night at Universal with my kid sister. It was interesting. She screams. A LOT. Everything scared her and I laughed my ass of watching her. Yet it was unusual because she loves to watch horror movies. The best part was the people at the studio could tell she was afraid so they picked on her more because of it. Yeah, a few times I got scared. Mostly when they barked at me, I growled back.

I didn't go to work today but I should have. I haven't been so unmotivated about work in a long time, plus I didn't feel all the well. Nothing like a drive back from Orlando with your maniacal kid sister at the wheel to kick the stuffing out of you. I'll skip all the things that were irritating about it, because as a teenager, I probably had many of those same bad habits, but I never ever came within six feet of ramming an oil tanker. Now that was scary.

As for the new G5, well I'm having some trouble getting used to it. Some of it's pretty cool. I can even learn to like some parts of OS-X but lots of it is designed around eye candy instead of functionality and I still find myself using classic a lot. But for browsing, I now have Firefox on my Mac. But Mac FireFox isn't as good as Windoze FireFox and that pisses me off.

The election is tomorrow and all attempts by myself to participate in early voting have failed. I am so not looking forward to that.

-- Eric