Category Archives: Internet

Film, Internet

Finding Movies to Watch

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TV shows are in limbo, making this a good time to catch up on those movies you’ve missed. I’ve tried to use Netflix, but it’s recommendation engine is still sub-par.1 Here are two resources that are actually reliable:

Ebert Search: Just select 3.5-4 stars in 2008. You’ll find some interesting stuff from the best film critic in the world.

2008’s Oscar-Eligible Films: Going through the 281 films that can be nominated for the 2009 Academy Awards, I found a lot of interesting films I didn’t have a chance to see.

  1. No matter how I browsed, it never suggested Step Brothers, even though I haven’t rated it, I want to see it, and Netflix predicts I’ll really like it. [↩]
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Humor, Internet, Rants

Fortune Cookies, Horoscopes, and Dating Profiles

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The trick with fortune cookies and horoscopes is that they are vague enough to shoehorn the specifics of your life to match them, whatever those specifics may be. It occurred to me that Internet dating profiles are the same way. She says she’s looking for someone who’s fun and has a great sense of humor and likes to travel. That pretty much narrows it down to “human”. Everyone thinks reasonably well of themselves, otherwise they’re not posting a public profile.

Even the part that lists specific requirements like age and height and body type are squinted at until they match the reader. She wants someone no older than 40, but she’s 38, so the 47 year old man thinks, “I’m good enough” (and if she has kids, he’s right). He wants someone of average or slender build and she thinks, “Why, that’s what I put on my profile!” Um, yeah, about that.

Dating profiles are sales brochures and daters are used car salesmen. Honesty is out the window because it would never get you anywhere. If I lived in a world where honesty was rewarded instead of punished, here is the profile I would write:
Continue reading Fortune Cookies, Horoscopes, and Dating Profiles →

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Internet, Rants, Technology

The PS3 Purchase Roller Coaster

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As you might have read, I want a PS3 real bad. Well, I ordered one today, paying more than I wanted to. Here’s with how it happened:

  • About a month ago I learn of the PS3 MGS4 bundle and verify it’s a good deal at $500. The guy at my local GameStop says the demand won’t be huge so I should have no problems picking one up when it comes out on 6/12. I didn’t detect any sarcasm.
  • Shortly after this, I register with Amazon to notify me when they’ll be getting it. I really don’t want to get it from Amazon because of shipping and waiting, but I figure this couldn’t hurt.
  • Amazon sends me an email yesterday stating that they’ll have limited quantities on 6/6 at 10am. Wow, I can get one early! I call up a few GameStops who unequivocally tell me they will not be getting any early, and hint that even if they did they wouldn’t sell it to me. Bastards. Clearly, they’ve bought them all and have them at home already.
  • I get ready to buy from Amazon, setting up One Click to use standard shipping. I see there’s a notice on the product page that there will be limited quantities and great demand across the country, so it will sell out quickly. Huh. That’s not good. Still, I’m ready get buy it tomorrow and receive it 6/12 the latest.
  • 9:30am. I’m online and ready to buy, refreshing every few minutes. Computer clock is synchronized with the government’s atomic clock. I see comments popping up in the review section and product forum. Somebody brags that he pre-ordered it from GameStop. Pre-order? What a fool! Doesn’t he know Amazon will have them on sale today?
  • 10am. After a few more refreshes, the page changes. “You can preorder this item for $499 and get Super Saver shipping.” Preorder? You didn’t say preorder, you said order! WHAT THE FUCK?!?! HULK SMASH!!!
  • 10:02am. I check GameStop. As the braggart noted, they have it for preorder, but it’s $560. Someone in the Amazon forum notes the free shipping gave him a ship date of 6/17. I don’t want it to take forever to get here, and I don’t want a markup. This sucks.
  • 10:05am. On Amazon, I click preorder. “The item you have chosen is no longer available from that seller.” You’re that seller, asshole! Aaaagh! It’s sold out. From the forum posts, it looks like it took maybe 2 minutes.
  • I check Circuit City, they don’t even have it listed. Time is running out and GS is my only option. I call up the local GS again: can I order it in store to avoid shipping charges (and ensure it isn’t stolen off my front steps)? No, online only. I bite the bullet.

So I went from paying $500 plus shipping and getting it before 6/12 to paying $630 and getting it on Friday the 13th. I thought GS was price gouging with the $60 difference, but it turns out they forced customers to also buy the MGS4 bluetooth headset. While I’ll soon need a bluetooth headset for the California hands-free law, I was not planning on getting one that looks like it belongs in some little kid’s playset:

Metal Gear Solid Bluetooth Headset

While I would have gone with something from Jabra or Plantronics, this is made from some company I’ve never heard of. On the plus side, I’m all set to play Buck fucking Rogers with the neighborhood kids.

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Internet

I blame watching The Brave One

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Reading this security warning about mean people that use a virus to encrypt your data and then offer to sell you a decryption key got me thinking. How bout we start a Google Answers type service where people can donate for a “virtual” hit on these dirtbags. If you get infected with a nasty virus and you want to get even, throw $20 into the pool for the virus or exploit that got you, and when it gets high enough, someone will think it is worth their time to “disrupt” the life of the people that infected you. Sure, it is probably hard to track them down, but my guess is that for enough money, people could get pretty creative. Besides, how hard could it be to outsmart these guys (I hear they share a bed with their mother and are dating their neighbor’s goat).

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Internet, Music

Design and Code

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The Poetic Prophet, AKA Moserious, raps at ya about designing and coding your site. Yes, your web site. And yes. It is awesome.

Ironically, going to his site triggered a Quicktime update message that crashed Firefox. The message noted that the latest Quicktime fixes many serious bugs. Indeed. But even though I was in the middle of writing this very post, Firefox restored this edit page with all my text in tact. Oh Mozilla, is there anything you can’t do? (Other than not crash in the first place?)

Tip of the hat to Ray and Or.

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Internet, Television

NBC Fall Schedule

Some big news from NBC:

  • Knight Rider returns as a series. It’ll air Wednesdays at 8PM. No word on whether Val Kilmer will still play KITT.
  • Merlin, a new series about Camelot, will air Sundays at 8PM. Better have a two-tuner DVR to grab that and The Simpsons, Family Guy, et al.
  • Matthew Broderick will be in the season finale of 30 Rock. The show, of course, has been renewed.
  • The Office is getting a… well, they’re calling it a spinoff, but I don’t see how you can have a spinoff when supposedly none of the current cast will be in the new show, and it will be in a different location. Sounds more like a copycat show to me. A special Office episode and the copycat pilot will air right after the Superbowl. Like last year, the first episodes of the season will be an hour long.
  • SNL will have a spinoff called Thursday Night Live. It will consist of a half-hour of political sketches leading up to the election.
  • Heroes is of course coming back. The new season will start with a 2-hour episode on Sept. 15th, following one of those lame hour-long clip episodes that Lost is always doing.
  • Life is coming back! Annoyingly it will air Fridays at 10PM, but that’s what DVRs are for. I never watched this on TV, but caught them all online (you can, too – the whole season). Now I’m hooked. I really like the main character, and the supporting cast is great. Sara Shahi looks gorgeous when she’s not in butch cop mode, and I’ve always liked Adam Arkin. My big hope is that Christina Hendricks will return. She’s a beautiful redhead with a body that would make Barbie jealous. Seriously, one of the best bodies in the history of bodies… Where was I? Oh yeah, to top it off they’re getting Donal Logue as the new boss. If you’ve never seen The Tao of Steve, in which he stars, rent it now. A great guy movie.
  • Scrubs is not coming back! Well, not on NBC – it’s expected to move to ABC. Looks like it’s getting replaced by the Office copycat and Last Comic Standing. Whatever.
  • Over the summer, NBC is creating a bunch of webisodes for Chuck, Heroes, and The Office. Hopefully they’ll be in HD; Yvonne Strahovski and Hayden Panettiere deserve nothing less.

More at Variety.

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Internet

Facebook Events Has a Long Way to Go

So I just posted a Facebook event for my belated birthday party. I had read that FB Events had surpassed Evite in usage by a wide margin. Facebook also proclaimed in the help that people who weren’t in FB could be invited and would be allowed to respond. What could go wrong?

First, the famous walled garden reared its ugly head. Yes, you can invite non-users, but their response is limited to yes/no/maybe. That’s it. I asked people to state alcohol preferences in the comments. It turns out that only FB users can write on “The Wall” for your event. Not cool. AND they can’t even specify that they’re bringing other people.

Then I noticed that the number of people who were confirmed didn’t match the list. This is because it only displays thumbnails for FB users. You have to click on a link to show both FB and non-FB attendees. And if you’re not a FB member, you can’t see the full list!

So Facebook Events treats non-FB users like second class citizens. As a host, I am embarrassed for its behavior. I strongly suggest it be avoided altogether unless all your guests are on FB. If you’re in HS or college, maybe that’s the case. But I’m too old to be in that situation.

Even if all your friends are on FB, there is another caveat: FB Events won’t send an automatic reminder. I learned about this tonight through a friend. He was invited to a party 3 weeks in advance. A few days before the party, he got an email from another invitee asking if he was still attending. As you might imagine, he and just about everyone else completely forgot about it. If they hadn’t formed an impromptu phone/email tree, most people wouldn’t have showed up.

Now I’m in the awkward position of having to create an Evite and spam my guests with another invitation. As far as I can tell, FB Events are only good for promoters who are publicizing events that are completely open to the public. For everything else, they suck.

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