bryguy

Palin

2009-07-04T02:50:28Z

Possibly the only person capable of breaking the Michael Jackson news cycle. I can only hope that this resignation signals her intention to seek higher office. As long as the Republican '12 Presidential primary process eliminates her that is; is it reasonable to count on that? Reckless?

Perquisites

2009-06-20T04:03:54Z

Apparently perk is an acceptable short form of perquisite, but perq ain't a word at all. Passing strange, that.

Trek: At A Loss

2009-05-11T19:25:44Z

What I find most infuriating about the new Star Trek movie is not that it was bad or a waste of my 2 hours 6 minutes. No, what drives me nuts is that so many other people liked it, which means that I'm horribly out of touch. See, for me, this wasn't a close thing and hardly even a matter of taste. The writing was bad, the plot was neither interesting nor internally consistent, and while there were bright spots in the acting the bad far outweighed the good.

So, I am in one of the situations I fear most in life; what is obvious to me is completely imperceptible to almost everyone else, meaning either my ego has run away with me or I am wrong.

Trek Review

2009-05-09T03:50:33Z

I wanted so much to like this movie. Maybe I wanted it too much. I have to spoil a major plot element to tell you why I didn't like it unfortunately.

Seriously, don't read anymore if you don't want to know stuff. There actually are a few surprises in this film.

The casting was good. The sets and costumes were good. The special effects were... different; not especially better so I don't know why they needed an update for things like beaming, but it was different.

The dialogue was ok, better in the first third of the movie than in the remainder. They kept trying to cram all the familiar characters' catch-phrases in, and it was... indulgent. I suppose they had to do it, I guess I wish I didn't feel so patronized by it.

Oh, and they managed to do product-placement. In a Star Trek movie. Seriously.

At least it wasn't as bad as Phantom Menace. Instead of Jar Jar we got... the old man. It was almost as bad as watching Dick Clark at New Years. Things were going fine until he showed up. Well, not fine exactly, there were massive plot holes explained away by the effects of black holes on space-time, but that's kinda par for the course with Trek I guess.

The villain was lame. Khan was a great villain, hence Wrath of Khan is widely regarded as the best Trek movie. Christopher Lloyd played an amazing Klingon captain. This villain's role was counter to the old saying that there are no small parts only small actors. There was just nothing to him, the flimsiest of pretexts for his murderous ways.

I would give the movie, as viewed, 1 out of 5 stars. If you cut out every scene with the old man, the movie wouldn't make much less sense and it would be way more fun to watch. I'd give it probably 2.5 out of 5 in that case.

Oh, and Scottie's little alien buddy, wth?

Afghanistan's Only Pig

2009-05-06T17:11:03Z

Kabul's zoo quarantines its only pig for fear of swine flu. Well worth a read, especially the part about the lion.

Deadwood

2009-05-06T04:59:06Z

I've been watching Deadwood and I was skeptical at first since western isn't usually my bag, but wow. The characters are really deep and halfway through season 2 I haven't seen a disappointing episode yet. The dialogue is smartly written, and the tie-in to historical events makes me feel like I'm almost learning something. My suspension of disbelief is complete, even during the occasional extended monologue that goes a little over the top.

Highly recommended. I guess the show ran for 3 seasons, if it starts to suck I'll be sure to report back here.

Spokesmodel

2009-05-06T03:58:45Z

I think the world will be well served by Miss California as spokesmodel for traditional marriage. Oh I'm sorry, "opposite marriage". Catchy!

Weight Loss: What Worked For Me

2009-04-29T15:55:41Z

I have lost a significant amount of weight the last couple years, on the order of about 40 pounds (I'm now just a bit under 200 pounds at 5'11"). I started writing this as an email to a friend but then I decided that others might find what I have to say useful so "chmod a+r" as we unix-geeks say. I'm not looking for any kind of congratulations or anything else like that, but any constructive advice you have to add would be most welcome.

The most important thing is motivation. You can't just willpower your way through it. You just can't. Instead you have to create motivation. You have to create habits and passive curbs on your behavior that make it so that even if you do everything else wrong you at least don't make it worse, and so that it's easier to do the things that help. Again, forgive me if this seems patronizingly obvious but I see so many people try so hard to stick to something unsustainable rather than changing their habits forever.

Here's the list of things I did that worked:

1. Eat a salad every day. Every single day. This is probably the easiest since you're actually adding food, but tricking your body into eating better food by slipping a proportion of fresh veggies into the mix.
2. Make fresh fruit more easily obtainable than other snacks. Personally I like oranges, so I try to make sure there's a bowl right in the kitchen with 3 or 4 of them. I also always keep some raisins around for when I am out of fresh fruit. I try not to keep chocolate or ice cream in the house at all. Create a habit of snacking on the good stuff.
3. Don't eat after 9pm. At all. Ever. Watch Gremlins, watch what happens when you feed them after midnight :) Seriously, from all that I've read it seems your body takes late night food and converts it into fat all night long, which has the unfortunate side effect of also messing up your sleep cycle. If you don't get to bed around midnight pick a time 3 hours before bedtime, but stick to it even when you need/plan to stay up later. I'm not perfect about this but it's gotten to the point where if I'm looking for a snack at night, I look at the clock and at least second guess myself. They say if you do something for 3 weeks straight it becomes a habit, and I've found that to be true in this case.
4. Skip a snack and feel good about yourself. Don't take reduced portions and don't make up for it later- just take a time when you wanted food but didn't eat it and tell yourself what a moral giant you are.
5. Exercise 30 minutes every other day at minimum, and at least once a week in the winter when it's super inconvenient (as it usually is). I have found that there is no solo exercise in the world that can compete with jogging, and for me doing it on a treadmill isn't the same as doing it outside. sonbanon and I have actually talked about moving to a warmer climate for this sole reason, so that it will be easier to get convenient exercise all year and hopefully I won't need bypass surgery in my 50's like my dad did.

The last thing, and I'm afraid I might not be able to help you with this one, is that you should have a lovely spouse who will replace some of your habitual evening restaurant meals with healthy and interesting home-cooked ones that have not been test-marketed to the customer base of TGIFriday's. If you don't have a lovely spouse to help you out with this then you may have to make other arrangements or even begin cooking yourself.

I won't wish you good luck because luck ain't got no say.

Ol' Arlen

2009-04-28T23:14:29Z

So Arlen Specter has now aligned his interests with the good guys. This gives the democrats, once Franken is seated, a filibuster-proof majority. I'm hoping this means we'll finally get health care reform.

Look You've Had 32 Years to Get the Damned Shot

2009-04-27T19:24:52Z

This *is* your father's swine flu scare.

Peeps

2009-04-15T23:31:18Z

You like stale peeps, right?

bryguypgh @ 2009-04-07T14:28:00

2009-04-07T18:38:28Z

The prosecution screwed up in Senator Ted Stevens corruption trial, and the Times article asserts that the prosecutors cut corners in order to cheat and get a high profile conviction. The exact opposite seems likely to me- that a Republican justice department would cheat in hopes of getting caught and eliminating the conviction (which is what happened). Obama's Atty. General Holder replaced the prosecutors when he took over but it was too late.

Am I crazy for thinking this?

Too busy for April Fool's

2009-04-01T14:59:00Z

I was up late last night making some last minute tweaks to a presentation I'm giving today. I was having trouble staying awake and I've spent the last 15 years developing an immunity to ~~Iocaine Powder~~ coffee so the 3 cups I had weren't really doing it for me. So I decided to take it to the next level.

Battlestar Galactica: Spoiler-Heavy Complaints

2009-03-21T21:12:27Z

The finale was fun to watch, but my inner logician is still shivering in a dark corner of my mind, refusing to come out and muttering something about "they earned it!"

Don't click if you don't want spoilers.

Kara just disappeared. Has there ever been a keener expression of authorial cowardice?

Toss the fleet into the sun. Uh, why? (and when did hybrid-man become communicative enough to do the right stuff anyway?)

Let the centurions fly away and hope they don't come crush our nascent defenseless civilization on a whim. It's self-parody really.

Head 6 and Head Gaius give us 30 seconds of dialog about god who hates that name. Deus ex Machina baby, you got plot holes? We've got deities! I could have gone to church if I wanted that.

Cavil shoots himself when the jig is up? Actually, I applaud that move, I thought it fit his character perfectly; we learned in an earlier episode that he really dreads the slow process of death and he's a sharp guy who knows the score. Yay writers. Except... it was actually Dean Stockwell's idea. Lol!

They did tease us with the "Plan" one-off and the Caprica miniseries where presumably we'll learn more about whatever comes to the top of Moore and Eick's heads next time around.

so much potential, wasted.

Wheatus

2009-03-17T13:44:54Z

Zildjian K Ride

2009-03-06T19:01:44Z

Expensive. Perhaps I will get Guitar Center gift certs for my birthday and buy one. Every time I play my kit I frown when I hit my Sabian B8. It's warm enough to play in the garage again so it's time to tune up the heads and start getting back into the swing.

Weekend Consumption

2009-02-23T16:09:23Z

Friday night beer was consumed in honor of D's birthday, and though my stay was short it was nice to be out and about. My first visit to Carson City Saloon and they had some good beer on tap, attentive waitstaff and thankfully, good music that wasn't so loud that I couldn't hear the conversation.

Saturday we had dinner with lilostitch and her fiance at The Library. The company was much better than the food in my opinion, but the space was neat, the beer selection was great, and the novelty children's book menus were really cool. I didn't recognize the place at first since they changed their sign, it used to look an awful lot like the Carnegie Library System's logo but the consensus at the table was that they probably had some sort of legal trouble with that. The menus still had the old logo though, which made me believe that I'm actually not crazy.

Sunday I made General Tso's Tofu. I use a bottled sauce so I can't take too much credit, but it's still a chore to make- I have to bread the tofu, fry it until it tastes enough like something other than tofu that the ladies in the house will eat it, then mix it together with some veggies in a wok to cook while I fret over timing the rice perfectly. Someday perhaps I'll try to make my own sauce, but I like the Iron Chef stuff and so do my "customers" so I'm in no hurry. For dessert sonbanon and T made some Banana Nut Muffin/Bread stuff which I enjoyed with some coffee as I settled in for a mindless night of video gaming.

Ugh

2009-02-12T13:15:32Z

Power outages and the screaming wind you can only experience when you sleep in an attic bedroom atop a Pittsburgh hill make for a rough morning. The sound effects up there are staggering.

Steelers

2009-02-02T14:25:01Z

Go Steelers. It's like "May the Force be with you" or "God bless" or any other religious invocation that can be used in place of a standard greeting. Being a Steelers fan is not a choice for me; I was raised a Steeler fan and my formative years were the heyday of the 70's Steelers dominance. I've never wanted to stray and while I don't always show up for services (indeed I only watched a couple games this year), Black and Gold is my religion and I associate strongly with my tribe.

How are those other religions working out? Kurt Warner tried the whole Jesus thing and it didn't really work out.

The game was very exciting. I kind of agree with John Madden that James Harrison shoving the Cardinals player when he was down was uncalled for, and it's too bad that image sticks with me rather than his historic 100 yard interception return or Santonio's ballerina catches.

Best stat of the game though: 1 safety! That's got to make some unlikely football pool winners. I guess you could get to 23 with a field goal, 3 touchdowns and one missed PAT though so maybe it's not that uncommon.

I'm a little surprised we only beat them 33-27 on time of possession since their entire offense was basically quick passing drives. I guess we don't have the running game we used to have.

Ah well, as I drove home from my sister's place last night people were outside of their houses dancing, people were waving terrible towels out of their windows honking, and there was generally just a festival atmosphere in the whole city and it's hard not to smile when you see people so happy. Go Steelers!

Parker is a Jedi

2009-02-02T00:27:41Z

Did you see how Parker just waited for that guy to fall at his feet before he started running? Amazing!

Water Cooler Talk

2009-01-20T19:31:20Z

My office is abuzz with 12th-cylon revelation talk today. Is your office Battlestar Galactica crazy?

Is He Really Gone?

2009-01-20T17:33:57Z

Pinch me.

Norwegian Wood

2009-01-06T15:42:45Z

Go grab yourself a copy of the Beatles entire catalog via podcast before they make it illegal. Go Norway!

Jailbreak?

2008-12-16T18:09:12Z

I'm considering getting an iPhone and then using it as a tethered modem with my laptop, does anyone have experience with either part of this? Is it possible to tether your iPhone without jailbreaking? Is jailbreaking easily reversible?

bryguypgh @ 2008-12-15T14:42:00

2008-12-15T19:48:28Z

Feeling incredibly blah this afternoon, probably my pasta lunch trying to put me to sleep. I did an online hearing test earlier, turns out I can hear 12khz clearly but not 16khz. Our stove emits a high pitched whine when the burners are on full that I can barely hear but the women in the house (and presumably the kittens) can hear all too well.

Tough to stay motivated with the exercising in the winter months but I've fired up ddr a few times in the past week when the weather outside was frightful. Max 300 on standard from ddr max2 is out of reach now, I remember barely being able to do it at one point but that may just be wishful thinking.

Went to Erie yesterday to celebrate my Sister's birthday, and had a nice meal with the family. Making that trip again in 2 weeks. It's funny how on a very long drive of 6+ hours you sort of resign yourself to the fact that the end is nowhere in sight but on the 2 hour trek to and from Erie, it's so short that you expect it to be over right away but it still takes the full two hours.