Ubik is Coming Soon

Philip K. Dick is undeniably my favorite Sci-Fi author. His stories have been turned into such great movies as Total Recall, Blade Runner, and Paycheck among others.

One of my least favorite books of his is about to be made into a movie. This book is called Ubik. Ubik is one of those stories that I consider to be daydream Sci-Fi. It begins in a really cool setting and then just starts going out of control. The story is set in 1992 where parapsychology is an accepted practice but it isn't legal so there's a company that goes around and blocks telepaths. This company goes to the moon and that's where all hell breaks loose, and time begins to go the other way.

As with all of Dick's stories, there are some really interesting aspects. For instance the main character has to pay to get out of his apartment, but he's so broke he doesn't have enough change for the door. Also, every chapter begins with an ad for a product called Ubik. Telling you what Ubik is would spoil the ending, but the products are everyday things that you'd recognize only the product name is Ubik. As time continues to roll backwards the products get more classic. This could be an interesting advertising mechanism for the movie, or even a nice diversion within the movie much in the way that Starship Troopers used the "Would you like to know more?" ads within the movie.

We'll see what happens when it comes out. My bet is that it will make me appreciate the book more. In fact just writing this blog entry has made me think about going back to re-read the book.

More info about the movie can be found here:
Philip K. Dick's 'Ubik' Is Heading to the Big Screen

The *Duh* Story of the Day

Great tits cope well with warming

Yeah! I already knew that one... oh.. wait... that tit? Well you know. All tits cope well with warming.

Donnie Darko

Out of nowhere a movie started popping up. There was a director's cut and a lot of people I know were telling me how great it was. That movie was Donnie Darko. I had it on my Netflix queue for a while, but I never bumped it to the top. As a result I deleted it one day when I was cleaning up my queue.

This morning I was in bed trying to get my daughter to sleep when I noticed that it was playing on the Sundance channel. I put it on and now I understand why so many people liked it.

First, any movie that has a clip of "Evil Dead" in it must be good.

Second, the case is amazing. From Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal, who many would argue would make for a bad movie but I disagree, to Mary McDonnell, Drew Barrymore (also an Executive Producer on the movie) and Noah Wyle. They all did a super job.

Donnie is a fairly dark boy with a horrifying past. He's seeing a shrink and is on medication. One day he starts to see this deranged bunny who tells him that the world will end in 28 days. The next 28 days are a whirlwind of tragedy and horror. I won't spoil the ending but it is a good one.

This movie isn't a horror movie although it has some elements of horror. This movie isn't Sci-Fi, but you could argue any movie with time travel as a theme is Sci-Fi. This is a thriller and a really good one. I'd recommend it to anyone.

Creative 50 - I work with two of them.

It's been a long time since I've posted. A lot has happened in the past year. My wife and I had a beautiful baby girl. We named her Inara Iris Spatafore. She was born 2 months early, but she is doing incredibly well.

In other news, I quit my job tried to start my own interactive agency, but then I got a call to come work for McCann Worldgroup. Answering that call has been the best career move I've made since I moved out of Montana. Anyway, enough about me. Two of the people that I work with were named to Creativity Online's annual Creative 50. This list of 50 people represent the biggest innovators of the year. Although the list includes the Google founders (I'm not sure what innovations they came up with last year), but it also includes the Coen Brothers.

Here's a link to the profile of the two guys I work with:

http://creativity-online.com/?action=news:article&newsId=125181&sectionId=creativity_50

Peet's vs. Starbucks

I prefer Peet's Coffee to Starbucks. I usually end up buying at least one cup of coffee a day at Starbucks because of how close it is to where I work. Peet's would be too much of a drive.

Starbucks raised the price of coffee today. For a small cup of coffee it is now $1.55. This was particularly embarrassing for me today because I walked in to Starbucks with only 6 quarters in my pocket. They had a cup of dimes sitting next to the register and used that to pay the missing 5¢. Although that was nice of them it was fairly embarrassing to me.

Let's compare that experience to the way that Peet's raised their prices a few months ago to $1.60. For the 2 weeks leading up to the price change they had a note sitting next to the register alerting customers that the prices would increase. The few days immediately before the increase the employees would gently remind the customers that the drink they just purchased would cost an extra 10¢ on the specified date. Then the day of the change, if you forgot/didn't know about the price increase they just discounted the price of your drink.

I personally think that Peet's had the right idea on their price change. The letter explained why they were raising the price and apologized for any inconvenience this would cause. Starbucks just put up a new sign one night and surprised everyone. At lease they had the courtesy to pay the difference when I went in there with only $1.50.

High Definition and Director's Intent

DJ and I just had a brief discussion about the visual quality of movies that have been transferred to HD-DVD. Specifically he was asking about movies that were filmed in 16mm that have a lot of film grain. He said he read some reviews that pointed out how poor these movies looked when re-mastered for HD-DVD.

My opinion on the matter is that many of the reviewers that I've read online do not take into account what was the director's intent (or cinematographer's intent, or director or photography, but I'm just going to jumble them all into the director category because it's one word). Please do not get me wrong. online reviewers like the ones at High-Def Digest does a phenomenal job of reviewing all HD-DVD's that are released. They even admit that they "make pains to not detract" based on film makers stylistic choices, but they are reviewing the quality of HD-DVD and that means that they don't want to see film grain or over exposed film.

I think that the director's intent is the most important thing in the movie. If you look at the movie Serenity on HD-DVD you can clearly see the film grain in the live action shots, but the space CG shots are clean and pristine. I believe that if I were to ask Joss Whedon (writer/director of Serenity) he would agree that this was a style choice to contrast between the (forgive the expression) spaghetti-western-ness of the live action portions and the hard-core Sci-Fi of the computer graphics section. Granted I don't personally know Mr. Whedon, but this is the way I interpret what I see on the screen. It invoked a feeling and set a mood that I think enhanced the movie.

This "invoking of feelings" and "setting of moods" is something that I find hard to get across when I am reviewing a movie. However, because I think that film grain is a conscious choice that the director makes when building a story, I will never detract someone from the HD-DVD version of a movie because of it. I may comment on it, but that is because I find it fascinating that with a high definition medium we can now forgo the movie going experience and have that experience in our own living rooms.

My DirecTV HD HR-20 Upgrade Experience

Ah, the power of blogging... now if only I had an audience.

So Leanne and I recently got a new TV for our living room. This was after giving my old Sony WEGA away as a house warming gift to Dave and Amy. Our new TV displays standard definition TV horribly. This made Leanne agree to let me upgrade our satellite system to high definition.

DirecTV requires that you get a new dish when you upgrade to their HR-20 HD DVR. They do not offer a TiVo based solution, nor do they offer a Windows Media Center solution. Both of which I would have preferred to the HR-20. This is because most of the reviews I have ever read are horrendous for the HR-20. A buddy of mine at work got one and he really likes it. So I decided to forgo the TiVo Series 3 which would require me to switch to Comcast and get the HR-20.

Not only does DirecTV require you to get a new dish, they also require "professional" installation. The "professional" installation is where I had problems.

Prior to the HR-20 I had a standard definition dish that I installed on the side of a planter (pictured to the right).  The idea was that Leanne and I would eventually plant some flowers or spices in the planter. I was always too afraid that the water would overflow and drip down on our neighbors. So, I always found a reason to not plant anything. The beauty of this design is that the dish never sticks out over the balcony railing. This means from the street level our balcony doesn't look as hideous as the dozens of other apartments that also have satellite dishes.

The installer felt that this setup would not be stable enough for the new dish. He said I needed a tripod. For those of you that do not know, DirecTV considers the tripod to be a temporary solution for individuals to use until a professional installer can properly attach the dish to something. Since I did not inform them that I lived in an apartment he was powerless to help me.

I did not like that solution. I asked if he could find a tripod. He called another installer and then left claiming he would be back with a tripod, but that I will have to write him a check for $40. He left, I called DirecTV. They confirmed that a $40 check was required from some installers for a tripod. I asked if they would give me a credit of $40 on my bill since they did not inform me that a tripod would be needed and the customer service representative gracefully gave me a $10 credit on my next 6 bills.

The installer returned claiming that he could not find a tripod and that I would have to reschedule my install and take another day off work to wait for them to belittle me again. I told him to leave. I called DirecTV determined to cancel everything and call Comcast. At this point only the $800 price tag of the Series 3 TiVo was stopping me from doing it. The new customer service representative that I spoke with called the install company and got them to get a tripod and return today to finish the install. I complained about the level of service I was getting from them and I got three months of Showtime for free. I do not feel like this is sufficient.

Long story short, he returned and finished the install. This is what I now have on my balcony (ugly isn't it?). Notice how it sticks up above the railing. Notice that it is barely held to the ground with two tiny cinder blocks. Now for the clincher...

 
Notice the broken bolt. Rather than fix it, he filled the gap with black electricians tape and a large bolt stuck straight down. This is the middle stabilizer. Click on it for a larger image.

 
Here is the bolt head. Click on it for a larger image. He left it sitting on the balcony. I am glad I did not go out there in bare feet. This sharp piece of metal would have been painful.

Professional installation indeed. If you are thinking about HD DirecTV please point them to this blog and demand a better install experience than I received.

What Does Happen When You Put Dish Soap in the Dishwasher?

A few days ago I told Leanne that I just remembered her telling me we were out of dishwasher powder. I said that I was just going to use some standard dish soap. "NO! Don't do that! There will be suds everywhere if you do that." Oh, yeah, I didn't think of that. Boy I'm sure glad I said something to her and she stopped me.

Now, Leanne is in Peru, and I decided not to go to the A's game. My fingers hurt too much to play Guitar Hero. What to do? Oh, I know! What actually will happen if I put dish soap in the dishwasher?

In my heart of hearts I know that Leanne is right. If I put a bunch of liquid soap in it will just suds up and go everywhere. So let's just put a little bit in and see how bad it is. I put maybe a tablespoon of liquid detergent into the dishwasher and set it off. Once it filled with water I let it run for 20 seconds. Then I opened it.

Sure enough there were suds everywhere. Just like Leanne promised. Part of me felt like calling a bunch of girls over and having a rave here in my apartment, but I'm sure that I'd get in trouble for that. I guess I'll just have to clean up the mess.

What is the best method for cleaning up the suds. Gasoline would cut the bubbles and the heating element in the bottom would react with it for a great party. My renters insurance would also get a little exercise out of that one though and I don't feel like dealing with that. Now I know that the acid in vinegar would reduce the surface tension in the water and possibly break the bubbles down, but I don't have any vinegar and I'm too lazy to go get some.

The trick at this point is that you won't actually get rid of all the bubbles. Liquid detergent is designed to bubble up in extraordinary ways (especially the cheep stuff we buy). So what you need to do is to make the bubbles small enough and dense enough that they will act like frothy water. Salt has the ability to help you do this. Also, oil will add additional help in that it will also help reduce the surface tension in the water. I added a healthy quarter cup of pickling salt (smaller granules will dissolve faster) and about 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil. I turned the dishwasher on for 2 minutes and then cranked the dial over to the drain setting. Opened it up after letting it rinse a couple of times and *pow* it's all clean.

So for all you out there looking for something to kill a couple hours I'd recommend this one. Who knows maybe the experience will serve everyone someday.

Pac-Man Championship Edition

There's a new Pac-Man game available from XBox Live Arcade.  Microsoft/Namco got the original author of Pac-Man to draw up some new mazes for the pellet chomper to run through. I got the demo version of it the other night and played it for about a half hour, and I have to tell you it's really good. I will probably slap down the 800 points ($10) to buy it. I just have to get one more song to 5 stars on Guitar Hero first.

It's a great game, the new mazes are pretty cool. The whole screen is not filled with pellets. Instead as you finish the pellets on the screen more appear. It makes the game a bit more fun, and it makes me think I'm doing better than I really am. I only have the demo version so I haven't tried all the new maps, but I know that Leanne is anxious to try it out. She just needs to get home from Peru. ;-)

It seems to me that this is all that really needs to be said for an updated version of the 2D classic game. New mazes, and updated graphics give it an overhead 3D feel. However, some people feel the need to complain about the 800 points that it costs. 800 points cost about $10. In fact for $10 you are getting what is essentially a brand new Pac-Man game. I'd pay $30 for a brand new Pac-Man game. So why does Microsoft feel the need to defend the pricing? Well I'm sure it'll come as no surprise to all of you that I don't need Microsoft to justify the pricing, and I doubt that anyone that has ever written production level software would argue the price either. Way to go Microsoft, please do more of these.

Kohler Wants You to Flush Stuff

Jo wants to meet your friends

There's this web site that Kohler put up to demonstrate the power of their new toilet. All you need to do is click on the link above and wait for the flash to download. Then because you are probably running IE (90% of all people on the web can't be wrong) you need to click on it to activate. Then wait a little longer for all the Flash components to download and then you are ready to start flushing things.

I had a little fun, it wouldn't let me flush the flowers, but the shampoo was fine. When I went to flush the towels hanging on the cabinet it crashed. It crashed in a very unflattering way. Here's a photo (Click photo to see full image):

Poor girl doesn't look as attractive when she crashes. Oh and while you are flushing things, try clicking on her to make her giggle.