ODDREE magazine has long been abandoned and probably is not coming back any time soon (if ever). Rather than let the web site sit around in a broken state I have decided to merge it with my Blog. Then at least if someone visits the site, they can see that I am still alive. Also - because I am lazy and I will probably never write another issue, this is a way for me to keep the spirit of the magazine alive in "blog"-format. I will still post stupid ramblings about my life here for those who are interested(?). But I will also be posting clippings here that I would otherwise withhold for a dead magazine. I hope you enjoy this new format.
Also I started writing up something nice to post here as a notice of "rebirth" but it's on my laptop and it's incomplete. I will post that later.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Time Warners Customer Service Sucks
I hate that my favorite channel, G4, looks like utter shit on my uber high quality HDTV. I pay all sorts of money to have the benefits of a digital signal broadcast in "true HD" so that I can watch CNN with borders ("this is HD!") and reruns of friends with black stripes down the side. Awesome.
So far, the only show I have watched that was actually recorded and broadcast in HD is American Idol. And I hate American Idol.
Filing a complaint with Time Warner is hopeless. Even if you get to that "I'm canceling my service" point, they really, REALLY, don't give a fuck. That said, I sent them an angry note about how shitty G4 looks.
And the awesome reply that I got back:
The only element of this email that wasn't form-letter driven was the badly written part that needs a fucktard translator to fully understand: "I do under the frustration and be rest assured that the G4 being a Comcast channel has nothing to do with the picture quality".
Customer service for cable companies these days is a fucking joke. It's like the old character that Lily Tomlin used to do - "we don't care, we don't have to, we're the phone company". Direct TV has a good thing going with all the brainless CEO's sitting around the board room table talking about how they can get rid of angry customers, or confuse them to keep them around.
So far, the only show I have watched that was actually recorded and broadcast in HD is American Idol. And I hate American Idol.
Filing a complaint with Time Warner is hopeless. Even if you get to that "I'm canceling my service" point, they really, REALLY, don't give a fuck. That said, I sent them an angry note about how shitty G4 looks.
Category of Your Question: Cable/Video Questions
Comment/Question: Why does G4 look like crap? It's the only channel I tune into religiously, and
it's a total waste of a digital box. I don't expect HD quality, but this station comes in like it
was filtered through an 8-bit game system. When there are close-ups of hosts, their freckles and
pimples seem to scatter around on their faces.
I realize that you are Time Warner, and this is a Comcast channel. But you can't tell me that they
send the feed to you in this condition.
And the awesome reply that I got back:
Thank you for contacting Time Warner Cable Email Support.
I understand that the picture quality of the G4 channel is not as desired.
I apologize for the inconvenience.
I do understand your concern and will address the issue to the best of my ability.
I do under the frustration and be rest assured that the G4 being a Comcast channel has nothing to do
with the picture quality.
I have checked the signal strength of the cable modem. The signal strengths are within our
acceptable levels.
I have refreshed the signals from our end. Please reset the cable box (digital receiver). To reset
your digital receiver, unplug the power supply from the back of the receiver for at least 30
seconds. This will force the receiver to reset. If this does not resolve your issue please let us
know and we will be happy to assist you in any way possible.
We value you as a customer.
If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to E-mail us again or contact our
Live Chat at the following link:
http://www.timewarnercable.com/CustomerService/chat/chat.ashx
Customer Support is available 24/7.
Sincerely,
Ron
Time Warner Cable Online Customer Service
The only element of this email that wasn't form-letter driven was the badly written part that needs a fucktard translator to fully understand: "I do under the frustration and be rest assured that the G4 being a Comcast channel has nothing to do with the picture quality".
Customer service for cable companies these days is a fucking joke. It's like the old character that Lily Tomlin used to do - "we don't care, we don't have to, we're the phone company". Direct TV has a good thing going with all the brainless CEO's sitting around the board room table talking about how they can get rid of angry customers, or confuse them to keep them around.
Monday, June 22, 2009
The FAIL MACHINE.
What do you do with an outdated Internet Appliance (the 3-Com Audrey) that no longer has purpose? You turn it into a "fail machine", of course.
We had tossed this idea around the office of having some sort of machine with big buttons on it that we could press any time someone makes a costly or stupid mistake. The buttons would trigger sound effects. Basically, we wanted a public soundboard. But making a soundboard in Flash and emailing it around the office is just not acceptable. We needed a geekier solution.
Here is what I ended up with:
The Audrey has a pretty lousy looking display, but it is a touch screen. So I created the application with four great big pushable buttons.
1) Keyboard Cat - This plays the world renowned "play him off, keyboard cat" jingle. This may be used either when someone leaves our department, or is asked to leave.
2) The Price is Right - This is the losing trumpet sound that the show is famous for. We play this sound quite a bit to signify a minor failure. Now it's always at arms reach.
3) We'll do it live! - Any large project project involves a test system. Then you end up with a test server (or test database) and a production server (or production database). We found that any time we are referring to making changes to the live production stuff, we couldn't resist saying "WE'LL DO IT LIVE!". Now, there's a button for that.
4) EPIC FAIL! - When someone screws up so very, very, badly (never me)... it can only be described as an "EPIC FAIL". This was a tough sound clip to find, but it's totally worth it.
The hardest thing about this project was learning how to build applications in "PhAb", aka the Photon Application Builder for the QNX Operating System. For that matter - finding a really old version of the QNX Operating System (version 6.0) would be difficult too ... but I happened to have it in my collection of obsolete operating systems. I had planned on installing this to a virtual machine only to find that the old OS didn't support modern processors. Yes, it's *that* old. I ended up borrowing an old P3 Dell that was on death row to use as my platform.
I had built a similar application for my Audrey many years ago that just launched a few commonly used applications so that I could use it as a simple jukebox in my kitchen. But that was at least 5 years ago, and my memory went blank when I start up the PhAb program.
There were other complications too, such as the lack of a "play sound" ability within the code. I ended up using the native media player for QNX, called "phplay". But then phplay would stay running after it's done playing a music file. In the end, each button triggers a shell execution of something like "phplay -Si failbutton1.mp3 & sleep 31 && slay phplay". This says "play a sound clip" and simultaneously "wait until it's done (30+ seconds)", then "find and kill the phplay application". The "-Si" switch tells phplay to play from the system tray and not pop up in it's application window form.
What I ended up with ... is an over-complicated soundboard. But if you should ever want your own fail machine, and you happen to own a 3-Com Audrey, I am sharing my code with you. You can download this mess from here.
Happy hacking. Now, play me off Keyboard Cat.
We had tossed this idea around the office of having some sort of machine with big buttons on it that we could press any time someone makes a costly or stupid mistake. The buttons would trigger sound effects. Basically, we wanted a public soundboard. But making a soundboard in Flash and emailing it around the office is just not acceptable. We needed a geekier solution.
Here is what I ended up with:
The Audrey has a pretty lousy looking display, but it is a touch screen. So I created the application with four great big pushable buttons.
1) Keyboard Cat - This plays the world renowned "play him off, keyboard cat" jingle. This may be used either when someone leaves our department, or is asked to leave.
2) The Price is Right - This is the losing trumpet sound that the show is famous for. We play this sound quite a bit to signify a minor failure. Now it's always at arms reach.
3) We'll do it live! - Any large project project involves a test system. Then you end up with a test server (or test database) and a production server (or production database). We found that any time we are referring to making changes to the live production stuff, we couldn't resist saying "WE'LL DO IT LIVE!". Now, there's a button for that.
4) EPIC FAIL! - When someone screws up so very, very, badly (never me)... it can only be described as an "EPIC FAIL". This was a tough sound clip to find, but it's totally worth it.
The hardest thing about this project was learning how to build applications in "PhAb", aka the Photon Application Builder for the QNX Operating System. For that matter - finding a really old version of the QNX Operating System (version 6.0) would be difficult too ... but I happened to have it in my collection of obsolete operating systems. I had planned on installing this to a virtual machine only to find that the old OS didn't support modern processors. Yes, it's *that* old. I ended up borrowing an old P3 Dell that was on death row to use as my platform.
I had built a similar application for my Audrey many years ago that just launched a few commonly used applications so that I could use it as a simple jukebox in my kitchen. But that was at least 5 years ago, and my memory went blank when I start up the PhAb program.
There were other complications too, such as the lack of a "play sound" ability within the code. I ended up using the native media player for QNX, called "phplay". But then phplay would stay running after it's done playing a music file. In the end, each button triggers a shell execution of something like "phplay -Si failbutton1.mp3 & sleep 31 && slay phplay". This says "play a sound clip" and simultaneously "wait until it's done (30+ seconds)", then "find and kill the phplay application". The "-Si" switch tells phplay to play from the system tray and not pop up in it's application window form.
What I ended up with ... is an over-complicated soundboard. But if you should ever want your own fail machine, and you happen to own a 3-Com Audrey, I am sharing my code with you. You can download this mess from here.
Happy hacking. Now, play me off Keyboard Cat.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Film Review: S.Darko
A while back I had heard that there was going to be a Lost Boys sequel. Everyone knew what was coming. A straight to DVD re-telling of the original story with the obvious cameos by the "two Coreys". When it debuted, I rushed to watch it, and it was about what I expected. Although the producers of the film weren't aiming to make a masterpiece. The end result was a decent vampire movie which almost parodied itself. It wasn't bad!
So how would you go about making a sequel to a strange arty cult classic like Donnie Darko? You wouldn't. At least you wouldn't if you were writer and creator of the original film, Richard Kelly. He apparently wanted nothing to do with this turd. And who could blame him? When you make a confusing film with multiple interpretations, and then don't fully explain the premise, how would you follow that up? Perhaps the better route would have been to make a prequel of sorts and go a new direction.
Using just the characters from the original film really allowed them to go anywhere with the story. But producers knew that they had to capture the same flavor as the original film if they wanted to sell it to that 'cult following' group. The original film felt claustrophobic, paranoid, and creepy. Richard Kelly says that this represented his childhood fear of "the bomb". But the imitation didn't quite hit that same vibe. There were the same long running shots in a party with sped up and slowed down film. There was the whole haunting thing going on with future/past dead people. There was the flowing watery stuff running out of various peoples chests. There was very intentional and awkward dialogue.
This movie is a generic box of cereal. It's cheap, and it looks about the same, but it doesn't quite taste right.
There were so many things duplicated in this movie unnecessarily that it really didn't add up. Why the same soundtrack? Why the same low budget effects? Why find a guy who looked so much like Donnie Darko, and then cast him as some other random character? Why re-insert the whole "they made me do it" nonsense with new characters?
What this film demonstrated, is that nobody does a Richard Kelly film like the man himself. Which at least somehow lets me form a compliment out of an awful and unwatchable disaster such as this.
So how would you go about making a sequel to a strange arty cult classic like Donnie Darko? You wouldn't. At least you wouldn't if you were writer and creator of the original film, Richard Kelly. He apparently wanted nothing to do with this turd. And who could blame him? When you make a confusing film with multiple interpretations, and then don't fully explain the premise, how would you follow that up? Perhaps the better route would have been to make a prequel of sorts and go a new direction.
Using just the characters from the original film really allowed them to go anywhere with the story. But producers knew that they had to capture the same flavor as the original film if they wanted to sell it to that 'cult following' group. The original film felt claustrophobic, paranoid, and creepy. Richard Kelly says that this represented his childhood fear of "the bomb". But the imitation didn't quite hit that same vibe. There were the same long running shots in a party with sped up and slowed down film. There was the whole haunting thing going on with future/past dead people. There was the flowing watery stuff running out of various peoples chests. There was very intentional and awkward dialogue.
This movie is a generic box of cereal. It's cheap, and it looks about the same, but it doesn't quite taste right.
There were so many things duplicated in this movie unnecessarily that it really didn't add up. Why the same soundtrack? Why the same low budget effects? Why find a guy who looked so much like Donnie Darko, and then cast him as some other random character? Why re-insert the whole "they made me do it" nonsense with new characters?
What this film demonstrated, is that nobody does a Richard Kelly film like the man himself. Which at least somehow lets me form a compliment out of an awful and unwatchable disaster such as this.
Saturday, May 02, 2009
Glenn Beck is still a douche!
A few years ago I was surfing through news channels and I came across a fresh new face I hadn't yet seen or heard. He was smug little man sprayed into a tight suit, and he kind of looked a Pee-Wee Herman doll inflated with hot air. He was in the middle of a discussion about what lazy filthy pigs Mexicans are. He went on to berate and disparage the entire culture as a bunch of border jumping job thieves. This rant was played over footage of "Patriots" patrolling the border, guns strapped to their backs. It about made my heart sink to think that there are dumb-fucks out there leaning forward off the recliner and giving Glenn long distance high fives. But then I figured, how long could a douche like this stay on the air? Eventually, someone would raise a stink about the shit coming out of his mouth and it would be all over. It turns out that you can build a fan club and build a career out of stupid (yet faithful) nightly viewers. But who knows right, Don Imus finally got what was coming. It just took far longer than anyone had imagined (including the secretary that he regularly called *the N-word*).
I will spare you my rant about Glenn becks latest comment about the Pittsburgh shooter. But I suggest you take a look at this. Okay, I will give you a short rant. Glenn seems to think that spouting racist remarks, encouraging anti-government, and portraying Obama as a self-proficizing messiah - has no effect on the public. Welcome to real fucking life idiot. This coming from the same guy that blamed television for the doubling of the homicide rate in the 1950's.
What is Glenn up to these days? He's still on the air. And he has a new book coming out. It's called "An Inconvenient Book: Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems". Oh, I get it. It's a joke on Al Gore's documentary about how we're melting the planet and sending ourselves to an molten hell. But nevermind that. Let's continue to make jokes about Gore because he claims he invented the Internet.
If you order his book now on Amazon, you can get free gift wrapping!
Might I suggest you wrap it in toilet paper? What's fun about this book, is that Glenn is only half-kidding when he titles the book with "real solutions". This reminds me of those General Electric commercials where they claim that the are going to build a smarter car, or electrical socket, or - whatever. Allow me to play the protagonist here. If you could build that shit - you would have all ready built it, put it in a box, and sold it to me. That hasn't happened yet. So shut the fuck up all ready with these commercials. And fuck you Glenn Beck.
What else is Glenn selling these days? T-shirts! Here's a heart warmer ...
What? Is this a joke? I mean ... obviously it's meant to be funny. But ... he supports drilling in Alaska. I would expect to find this shit on T-Shirt Hell where people would buy this and wear it to offend those on both sides of the issue. I guess this comes down to Glenn's roots as a member of the religious right who don't seem to value the life of anything that wasn't created in God's image. Polar bears don't have souls. So fuck em'!
Here's another one for you ...
I want to congratulate anyone who buys and wears this shirt. I'm going to encourage this one. It will help me identify you in public, so I know not to speak to you.
I have saved the best item for last.
Here is Glenn perpetuating the right-winged talking heads idea that Obama thinks he is Jesus. I really don't know where this whole thing started. Perhaps with Oprah calling him "the one". Or perhaps with the poor bastards who had given up hope after seeing the disaster that our nation is in, and who got excited at the thought of a new outlook for Washington. God forbid we should believe in our president, and not a dead Jewish carpenter from Israel. God forbid ... I made it funny, right?
As much as I hate Glenn Beck, I really want to own one of these for my car. This is sort of like his t-shirts. If I have this on my dash and I still have a "BUSH/CHENEY 2004" sticker on my car, a gun rack, an American flag window sticker, and a NASCAR number (with autograph), I am obviously making fun of Obama. If I have one of these on my dash, and an Obama sticker on my bumper - I am making fun of people who still think a dashboard Jesus is a good idea.
While I am on this serious Blog roll here - let me take a moment to talk to another member of my community.
Dear stupid bitch in the Lexus who gave me a dirty look today for my Obama and "COEXIST" stickers ...
As you were leaving your -excuse me- MY parking spot on your way out of church, I was coming home to get cleaned up. While you were sitting your fat ass in church praying for society, I was cleaning up all the trash at your local park. While you were headed home to sit on the coach, eat ice cream, and watch Glenn Beck, I was leaving to go out and help build a house for a family in need. But go ahead and continue to judge me. I just wish in the end, there was a big set of pearly gates, and some douche standing there to judge YOU. So good ol' Saint Peter could give you a kick in the cunt for wasting all of your good years on your knees - instead of getting the fuck up and doing something useful with your time.
Speaking of doing something useful with your time ... why am I still sitting here ranting?
Fuck.
I will spare you my rant about Glenn becks latest comment about the Pittsburgh shooter. But I suggest you take a look at this. Okay, I will give you a short rant. Glenn seems to think that spouting racist remarks, encouraging anti-government, and portraying Obama as a self-proficizing messiah - has no effect on the public. Welcome to real fucking life idiot. This coming from the same guy that blamed television for the doubling of the homicide rate in the 1950's.
What is Glenn up to these days? He's still on the air. And he has a new book coming out. It's called "An Inconvenient Book: Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems". Oh, I get it. It's a joke on Al Gore's documentary about how we're melting the planet and sending ourselves to an molten hell. But nevermind that. Let's continue to make jokes about Gore because he claims he invented the Internet.
If you order his book now on Amazon, you can get free gift wrapping!
Might I suggest you wrap it in toilet paper? What's fun about this book, is that Glenn is only half-kidding when he titles the book with "real solutions". This reminds me of those General Electric commercials where they claim that the are going to build a smarter car, or electrical socket, or - whatever. Allow me to play the protagonist here. If you could build that shit - you would have all ready built it, put it in a box, and sold it to me. That hasn't happened yet. So shut the fuck up all ready with these commercials. And fuck you Glenn Beck.
What else is Glenn selling these days? T-shirts! Here's a heart warmer ...
What? Is this a joke? I mean ... obviously it's meant to be funny. But ... he supports drilling in Alaska. I would expect to find this shit on T-Shirt Hell where people would buy this and wear it to offend those on both sides of the issue. I guess this comes down to Glenn's roots as a member of the religious right who don't seem to value the life of anything that wasn't created in God's image. Polar bears don't have souls. So fuck em'!
Here's another one for you ...
I want to congratulate anyone who buys and wears this shirt. I'm going to encourage this one. It will help me identify you in public, so I know not to speak to you.
I have saved the best item for last.
Here is Glenn perpetuating the right-winged talking heads idea that Obama thinks he is Jesus. I really don't know where this whole thing started. Perhaps with Oprah calling him "the one". Or perhaps with the poor bastards who had given up hope after seeing the disaster that our nation is in, and who got excited at the thought of a new outlook for Washington. God forbid we should believe in our president, and not a dead Jewish carpenter from Israel. God forbid ... I made it funny, right?
As much as I hate Glenn Beck, I really want to own one of these for my car. This is sort of like his t-shirts. If I have this on my dash and I still have a "BUSH/CHENEY 2004" sticker on my car, a gun rack, an American flag window sticker, and a NASCAR number (with autograph), I am obviously making fun of Obama. If I have one of these on my dash, and an Obama sticker on my bumper - I am making fun of people who still think a dashboard Jesus is a good idea.
While I am on this serious Blog roll here - let me take a moment to talk to another member of my community.
Dear stupid bitch in the Lexus who gave me a dirty look today for my Obama and "COEXIST" stickers ...
As you were leaving your -excuse me- MY parking spot on your way out of church, I was coming home to get cleaned up. While you were sitting your fat ass in church praying for society, I was cleaning up all the trash at your local park. While you were headed home to sit on the coach, eat ice cream, and watch Glenn Beck, I was leaving to go out and help build a house for a family in need. But go ahead and continue to judge me. I just wish in the end, there was a big set of pearly gates, and some douche standing there to judge YOU. So good ol' Saint Peter could give you a kick in the cunt for wasting all of your good years on your knees - instead of getting the fuck up and doing something useful with your time.
Speaking of doing something useful with your time ... why am I still sitting here ranting?
Fuck.
Infomercial Time
Informercials are really stupid. Also stupid: artists who sing everything through a vocalizer. But when you combine the two, something magical happens.
Film Review: Wolverine X-Men Origins
Since the first X-Men movie, and especially after the third one we have all been waiting anxiously for Hollywood to crank out a Wolverine movie. The last X-Men film alluded to a side story when at its end when Wolverine leaves the mutant compound in search of his past. But that storyline might as well have been null and void, since this movie is a prequel to the others.
Which reminds me ...
I have read several reviews for this film, and none of them have been good. But critics these days are like journalists. They have been raised in a copy and paste world, given community college degrees, and aren't at all familiar with the term "investigative journalism". So when they trash a film, they generally miss the whole purpose of the review. I for one would like to stand over them like a third grade teacher and say "that's very good Lisa, now tell us why you think it sucks". Which brings me to this. Three of the reviews I have read went on to trash the film for being a prequel and not a fourth film in the franchise. This might me one interesting point in a film review, but should not be the filling of it.
So I am going to give it to you straight. This film would have been *great* had it been directed by someone more experienced. Short sighted direction has a certain flavour to it. When watching the film you get certain vibes. Those are: a) bad line delivery, b) unnecessary actions or dialogue, c) giving the viewer unnecessary clues, d) and an unnatural flow to the whole thing. This is why this film has not reviewed well. The cast was great. The story line was pretty good. The special effects were awesome. The direction ... not so good. Some are more forgiving than others when it comes to poor directing. I have seen some critics give this film a B+ while most of the others give it a C- or worse.
Another strange vibe was the extreme violence, and then the lack thereof. At times there are events which seem out of place and extreme. In other portions of the film the violence takes a back seat to bad line delivery. Is this another example of bad direction? Or rather, was the studio battling with the rating system? We won't know until the DVD of the directors cut lands in stores.
Wrapping up ... likely, you are going to go out and see this film regardless of what the critics said. But just understand that you are probably not going to be satisfied with it's delivery.
My final score? Somewhere between a B- and a C+.
Which reminds me ...
I have read several reviews for this film, and none of them have been good. But critics these days are like journalists. They have been raised in a copy and paste world, given community college degrees, and aren't at all familiar with the term "investigative journalism". So when they trash a film, they generally miss the whole purpose of the review. I for one would like to stand over them like a third grade teacher and say "that's very good Lisa, now tell us why you think it sucks". Which brings me to this. Three of the reviews I have read went on to trash the film for being a prequel and not a fourth film in the franchise. This might me one interesting point in a film review, but should not be the filling of it.
So I am going to give it to you straight. This film would have been *great* had it been directed by someone more experienced. Short sighted direction has a certain flavour to it. When watching the film you get certain vibes. Those are: a) bad line delivery, b) unnecessary actions or dialogue, c) giving the viewer unnecessary clues, d) and an unnatural flow to the whole thing. This is why this film has not reviewed well. The cast was great. The story line was pretty good. The special effects were awesome. The direction ... not so good. Some are more forgiving than others when it comes to poor directing. I have seen some critics give this film a B+ while most of the others give it a C- or worse.
Another strange vibe was the extreme violence, and then the lack thereof. At times there are events which seem out of place and extreme. In other portions of the film the violence takes a back seat to bad line delivery. Is this another example of bad direction? Or rather, was the studio battling with the rating system? We won't know until the DVD of the directors cut lands in stores.
Wrapping up ... likely, you are going to go out and see this film regardless of what the critics said. But just understand that you are probably not going to be satisfied with it's delivery.
My final score? Somewhere between a B- and a C+.
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