ABC’s “V” Series Hamhanded Commentary

November 25, 2009 in thoughts | Comments

Battlestar Galactica might’ve lifted its core plot line right out of Mormon mythology but it still managed an intelligent commentary on present day affairs and made a pretty in-depth examination of the human condition while it was at it. This has always equaled good sci-fi for me. Enter the V’s :

Image Courtesy of ABC

Appealing mainly to the folks who don’t care to watch anything that can’t be programmed, categorized, or easily referenced (Thanks Mulder); ABC’s V is as subtle as an outburst of cheek flapping flatulence at your Aunt Bessie’s funeral, and equally tasteful. Its pilot episode went form zero to second season in one commercial break, while managing a painfully obvious dig at health-care and Obama. They wrapped up their 4th episode by playing off flu-shot conspiracy theories. Remember kids, your government is out to get you, so grab a gun and start a militia now, you’ll be glad you did when it comes time to storm the White House.

I always thought ABC dressed more to the left?

I gave it a shot, watched the 4 primer episodes before it goes on break till spring of next year (brilliant). No matter your own political leanings, the writing in this show doesn’t warn about the dangers of embracing the new and shiny just because what you have is busted up and cancerous (that’s a decent sci-fi plot idea). On the other hand I think they’re trying their damnedest to stir up as many wing-nuts as possible, just to see what effect it might have on ratings for a show which would otherwise already be canceled. This is the worst kind of television sci-fi.

So what am I left with? A show chasing after the the success of BSG, masquerading as legitimate sci-fi when the whole concept is more suited to the popcorn party treatment of Independence Day than it is to making any kind of meaningful commentary. If the show does make it back on air in March, I’m going to have an easy time forgetting to tune in. Maybe I just feel betrayed that as a kid in elementary school, I loved the original series, even though I realize it was just as cheesy as this current rehash.

How about you? Love it, hate it, or meh?

 

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Vegas, Here We Come!

November 13, 2009 in vacation | Comments


Photo from fOTOGLIF

So J and I are heading to Las Vegas for a much needed vacation starting Monday! J’s never been and I’ve only been once before, long ago for Blogworld Expo my first year with b5media. I spent most of my time on that trip with my head up a web server’s ass so I’m looking forward to returning on “me time”.

It is off season, and getting on into November, so hopefully there’s still a little warmth left in the days. I won’t be impressed if I arrive to something like the picture on the right. I think that was December of last year so we’re cutting it pretty close :)

We’re going to take in a show or two and check out a number of higher end restaurants. Recently our addiction to the food network has reached new heights, and with a push at home to cook as much as possible from scratch, this trip should provide plenty of inspiration!

What’s your favorite thing to do in Las Vegas (gambling is not an answer!) Got any favorite destinations, things to do and see? Anything exciting away from the strip people might not normally think to do? Would love to hear from you.

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Top Gear’s Richard Hammond’s Horrible Crash at 505 km/h

November 13, 2009 in thoughts | Comments


Photo from fOTOGLIF

Recently I’ve found myself a belated fan of this relatively obscure show (well in Canada anyway). I’ve known about it for years but it never made it to my PVR list until recently. The charm of the show is wrapped up in the 3 charismatic presenters and the absolutely outrageous litany of hare-brained challenges, races and outright spectacle they’ve been responsible for since hitting the airwaves in Jeremy Clarkson’s re-envisioned, resurrection of the long running BBC show in 2002.

I’d become quickly attached to the 3 personalities during the occasional times I happened to trip over it on the weekends, but with it playing nightly on BBC Canada currently, this is a great chance to get it on the PVR and really catch up. Imagine my surprise then when I find out tonight co-host Richard Hammond had been involved in a horrific crash during a speed test segment for the show back in 2006. A coma, brain injuries,  a long road to recovery later and Richard did make a full recovery, returning to the show in record time considering the nature of his crash.

Well as all enterprising individuals with a good story to tell eventually do; he wrote a book about it called On The Edge: My Story.  I’m told it’s quite compelling and will be making it onto my night stand in short order. Honestly if you find cars interesting at all, you owe it to yourself to track this program down on your dial and get to know these guys. Check the vid below for Richard’s return appearance, complete with footage of the amazing crash.

 

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Fast Linux CLI tips

May 12, 2009 in Linux Tips | Comments

It came up in discussion with Terry Smith recently, just how much of a revelation bash’s tab to auto complete feature is for someone who hasn’t discovered it yet.

Tab once to have bash auto complete a string on the CLI which has only one possible match in your current path. If nothing happens, tab twice to see possible matches then continue typing to narrow the focus to one possible match, then tab again to auto complete.

It’s not worth going into any more detail, but if you don’t already know what I’m talking about, next time you’ve got a linux terminal window open, start hitting tab.

Enjoy.

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Linux Tip #1

May 12, 2009 in Linux Tips | Comments

This one’s really basic, but just because you’re an ace php developer doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve had a chance to discover all the ins and outs of bash and the linux command line. One of the guys in the office recently asked me how to make a change to multiple files in his code base with a single line command. Find and sed are your friends here. Since I’m a huge fun of doing as many things as possible with one liners, here’s the gist of what we did.

find . -name '*.php' -exec sed -i -e"s#search#replace#g" {} \;

Find the files you want, run sed on each one of them, edit inline with the included expression, done.

Big thing to note is sed using ‘#’ for a seperator and not ‘/’ . I believe the man page still talks about using a forward slash, but ‘#’ works.

The results from your find command are run through the {} so don’t forget that, and a find -exec must be terminated with a \;

Enjoy.

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Tips from a sysadmin at b5media

May 12, 2009 in Linux Tips | Comments

As part of my on going effort to do anything at all with this blog, I’ve decided to start posting any little linux tidbits that spin out of the day to day here at b5media. This new category is where I’ll slap up anything that folks new to linux, or looking for the odd time saver here or there might appreciate.

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Cinnamon Gum: Natural Quit Smoking Aid

April 15, 2009 in smoking | Comments

It’s been roughly two weeks since I smoked my last cig, the cravings are constant and at times powerful. Now I’ve read in the past cinnamon gum can help when you’re quitting, so I picked up a few packs when I was over my flu and getting back to work.

Crazy thing is, it seems to be working! I think this has less to do with cinnamon per se, and more to do with finding a way of displacing the habitual / ritualistic nature of smoking. When I crave a smoke, I pop a piece of cinnamon gum. Could just as easily be a dog biscuit I guess, but I’m going to stick with the gum for now.

The nicotine is gone from your system really quickly when you stop smoking, the habit is the real killer.

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Moving to the West End of Toronto

April 15, 2009 in thoughts, video | Comments

It’s been two weeks since I quit smoking, and in two weeks time I’ll be moving into a new apartment (*cough* loft *cough*) in the west end of Toronto. It’s got a certain symmetry to it. I’m feeling better in time to start feeling much better about where I’m living.

I’ve been looking for a way to pick up on the posting bit, so will look for a chance to blog here and there as we get closer to moving.

Very excited about the new place, sooo glad to be getting out of the current place. I’ll leave you with a video which seems apropos in many ways.

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A Catalyst to Quit Smoking Successfully

April 3, 2009 in smoking | Comments

Everyone knows it’s hard to quit smoking. If you’re mentally prepared to quit, you honestly don’t want to smoke anymore, then you’re already more than half way there. If you’re trying to quit for something or someone else, you’ve got an almost insurmountable task ahead of you.

Sometimes all you need is a fortuitous catalyst. The last time I was very successful at quitting I’d recently started mountain biking competitively, so the incentive was there to have working lungs. Breaking my leg in an unrelated act of stupidity put a stop to biking long enough for boredom to start me up smoking again. I’ve quit a couple of times since, but haven’t been very successful at staying that way.

Way back in November of last year I’d started thinking it was probably soon time to quit smoking… again. One of the main reasons I’ve been putting off quitting for so long this time around is the feeling this is probably my last real chance to quit. If I pick it back up again this time, I’m screwed. I’ll be a smoker for life. Enter my latest fortuitous catalyst:

sosickAfter a couple of days feeling so horrible I couldn’t even contemplate smoking, it occurred to me this was the perfect time to give it another go. Instead of looking forward to feeling repaired enough to light up, why not look for reasons to give it up again? And then this old article bubbled up to the top of the traffic charts at b5media’s newly redesigned destination site, blisstree.com. Seeing the immediate benefits to your body in a very short time after finishing your last smoke was pretty cool.

So check out the article, and look for a catalyst in your life to help you put down smoking. I’m not saying you should strip down and stand naked in the cold spring rain, or lick the hand holds on the subway ride home this evening… but if you’re looking for a good chance to get enough of a break from smoking to make quitting easier, consider getting sick ;)

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Tweets, Twits and Twoughts with Stephen Colbert

April 3, 2009 in thoughts | Comments

So I’ve been on the Twitter sidelines for some time now, dabbling much as I dabble here with blogging. My friends outside of work are reaching a point of exhaustion with facebook, but are convinced they want nothing to do with Twitter. Twitter’s recent exposure in mass media has managed to clue a lot of people in to its existence, but due to mass media’s general confusion with the service, hasn’t passed on a lot of anything else. I tell them it’s a powerful business tool if used properly, but outside businesses directly connected to new media, that’s sort of hard to quantify. If you’re not using it for business, does the average person really receive any benefit from Twitter not afforded by facebook or any of the other more ’social’ social networks? How will the world at large continue to react to Twitter? I’m hoping the Colbert Nation can help provide an answer.

During his interview with Biz Stone (cofounder of Twitter) this evening, Stephen Colbert finally picked up his iPhone and started tweeting (@stephenathome), and after the initial flurry of follows, he’s been building his Twitter congregation at a rate of about one a second since the show ended. I jumped on the follow train and plan on watching to see how both the show, the host and the fans react to one and other over the next few weeks.

While we’re waiting to see how one of the most influential celebrity voices of our times determines what to make of it, check out this hilarious outtake from a recent interview with Colbert where he’s asked if he’s on Twitter.

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