Archive for August, 2004

As much as I tried to deny it, it has already begun. I haven’t posted in three days when originally I would be posting 3 times per day. I tried to think positively but it just isn’t there. Is it my attention span or simply that I need constant new challenges and new projects? The online project I work on lasts under a day currently today I have gone through Frinks, a single sign in and am now on a music site.

My affection for Branch Planet is also starting to leave slightly. Yesterday I got to the afternoon and realised that I hadn’t posted the updates. Well, one of the days anyway I don’t know day from day this summer although I do know depressing times are ahead. I don’t want to head back to work or become another year older.

So what should be done? How can I stick with a project, constantly keep my attention on it, and not abandon it for the next idea that takes my fancy. I know I am not the only one with a short attention span. JD’s lasts around 14 seconds which makes my 6 hours look pretty long. But let’s face it we are both nothing but shopping addicts.

What we really need to do, rather than fix us, but to make everyone else as bad as us. We are working on Carl, he is pretty much addicted to put noodles and smoking as well as falling foul to Amazon’s one-click ordering so I guess we have done a pretty good job. So perhaps we should move on to moulding the next person in our image. I’m thinking John.

Ok, first things first before I get into my ramblings. Happy birthday JD! Finally after months and months of waiting and watching everyone around him turn 17, today is finally the day. Cassie has promised him a special present so I can’t wait to find out what it is.

As for me, I have my driving theory test in like an hour. Preparation went ok although as always I struggled to clear away time to do it. I didn’t get the video watched until 6:30 this morning.

And to finish off this post I will mention I have new photos to post which I will do along with the backlog of other photos that I have to post – they are all coming soon. Eventually.

I can’t beleive there are still people out there who think Kirk is better than Picard. I was running a search on Google for reasons why Picard is better than Kirk and it kept coming up with huge lists of why it is the opposite. What are those people thinking, it clearly isn’t that way. I mean Picard never got chucked out of being an admiral.

This brings me back to Neil Goldman’s presentation on Family Guy. And as his teacher correctly pointed out, "everybody knows Picard is the superior officer." I mean just take a look at these 101 reasons why Picard is better than Kirk. And that is on Pathcom.com so although I haven’t heard of the site before, the way I said it means that you can’t dispute it.

Plus I was reading things like this, Kirk Vs. Picard which gives 101 reasons why Kirk is the best:

76. Kirk would never waste a holodeck on something stupid like Dixon Hill.

Dixon Hill was sorted!

70. Kirk liked a good belt of liquor every now and again.

Watch the Next Generation episode where Scotty returns – who was it who gave Guinan her selection of real alchol? Picard!

44. Picard never met Joan Collins

How is that a bad thing?

15. Kirk would never touch SYNTHAHOL

Again, Picard brought a load of alchol aboard for Guinan

4. Kirk traveled through The Great Barrier, met God, and wasn’t even impressed

It wasn’t god, as was correctly mentioned, what would God want with a starship?

Thinking about the O.C. vs. One Tree Hill got me thinking about how one thing suceeds another. With teen dramas there is a clear path of succession Beverly Hills 90210, Dawson’s Creek and now the O.C. / OTH whichever of them comes out victorious. Nowhere is this kind of one dominance more clear than in technology.

Look at browers for example – Netscape used to dominate the market. Then Microsoft threw its weight behind Internet Explorer and that became dominate. Maybe beleive that Netscape gave up as they had the dominate position and it didn’t get them anywhere, they didn’t make much money. I beleive the same is now happening with Internet Explorer – it’s not making Microsoft any money being free which it why they are likely to put it back as part of the Windows bundle rather than a seperate application. And they are beginning to lose their dominance to Mozilla.

Of course this type of thing is nothing new. To continue the reguritation of what I said in my last post – Betamax vs. VHS, MP3 vs. Minidisk. How about the console wars too? Sega and Nintendo owned the market, then Sony came along and became dominant. Now it is a case of Sony perhaps losing their market share and Microsoft’s XBox becoming dominant.

Few things can surive in harmony together. The one example that did spring to mind though is religion probably due to them all being more or less as wrong as each other. Of course Encoria will one day rise to dominance too. Perhaps it is envitiable that one stronger thing will destroy another.

The debate that has been on everybodys minds (who are aware of it anyway) finally came up on the iMBD.com
message boards. But before we get to that I think I will explain how I
was in that position. As it happens I saw I, Robot earlier to day –
great film. I finished my review of it about 20 mins ago, I think its
one of the longest ones I ever did. Anyway after drifting around I
found myself on the iMDB page for The O.C.

Onto the real content. As my eyes flicked down towards the message
boards I saw the topic topic that was inevitably going to come up. To
quote the topic title "O.C vs. One Tree Hill" At the end of last year, everything was going smoothly. The O.C. was set to replace Dawson’s Creek as the new teen drama just as Dawson’s Creek replaced Beverly Hills 90210.

Then One Tree Hill bursts onto the sceens. It captivates our ready to be shaped minds and suddenly gets us thinking, maybe this will be the next big emo teen drama. Now chaos consumes, there is no longer just one major teen drama there are two. And in situations like this the outcome is fairly inevitable. VHS vs. Betamax, Minidisk vs. MP3, SMTV Live vs. Live and Kicking – one must be destroyed.

Of course it is possible that both could survive. But these things rarly go that way. And as for SMTV Live vs. Live and Kicking I never really liked either I just decided based on the shows they had. SMTV Live tended to have more of the best – Sabrina and Keane & Kel although they did split them up. And on top of that Live and Kicking or whatever it was at the time had So Little Time – great show, I am thinking of getting it on DVD.

Anyway from what I have seen on the topic the O.C. seems to be coming out victorious but One Tree Hill does have a vote or two. And I’m not blind enough to ignore that this is after all an O.C. board so the bias is going to be obvious. But anyway, check it out here.

Yep, the pile of crap Macromedia call a software application screwed up again. Everytime I minimize it it never opens back up again and the last time that I was forced to close it again via emergency shut down it lost all my sites meaning I have to define them all again. And this isn’t the first time it’s happened, I have had the problem before several times.

I also hate Channel 4 because I am really pissed right now. The adverts being so much louder than the shows sucks. Also I hate the guys who made my laptop as my K key doesn’t work very well due to all the problems that force to use the idea of if in doubt, give it a clout. Also there are many other things I am now happy at.

I have loads to do tommorow and I really don’t have time to do this all. Life sucks!

I actually reached the status three days ago but never got round to posting about it. The important thing is though that I have now hit the million mark – I have over $1,000,000 on Vice City :D. Sure I will probably never go on the game again (although I did go on today which is what jogged my memory) and the amount has no real meaning but who cares.

Today has been quite a medium paced today. It is raining yet again so I decided not to head out, or so far I have decided to do that anyway. Although there is plenty to do inside and even if not and I get really bored I can resort to getting my digital camera out and uploading all those pictures I said I would so weeks ago.

In other random news I currently have two websites I am working on. One of which is going to be a collaboration between myself and JD although the project is still in quite early stages. I have done the basic page design with some cool News.com style JavaScript menus though :).

I just finished updating Worfolk News, the latest story is that Apple’s AirPort Express has been cracked. So much for Apple’s strangle hold on the market, first Real increase compatability and now  this. Isn’t it great the way everything gets broken down and destroyed. Even I am not sure if that is sarcastic or actually want I mean :?.

It’s still raining outside – yesterday saw unstoppable rain that went on for hours. We went out for a meal and after a long decision I decided not to bring my digital camera – wrong move. The round-a-bout next to the pub we were at had water over a foot high and the field next to the car park burst, leaving a big lake where the exit used to be.

The staff had lots of fun trying to get the cars out plus we got a load of free stuff too. On the downside, it’s still raining and I can’t say I want to go out in the rain. Maybe blue sky and sun will appear in the next four minutes, ya never know in this country. Whatever happens though I need to show off my new purchase!

I have more to comment on though. Although I’m not quite sure what it is. I have my driving theory test coming up on Tuesday and then on the Thursday my AS results come out. Should be a fun week.

Last night I got a good nights sleep or once. Well part of one anyway. Ya see, last night I actually turned my laptop off. This had two advantages, the first being that when I awoke to turn it on today it was cool when I touched it rather than the usual almost too hot to rest your hands on. The second advantage being that I need not have to try and sleep with the fan blasting out all night.

I say part of one though as I didn’t get to sleep until 1 am, and it should have been 2 am. Last night I watched LA Superhomes, One Tree Hill and Nip/Tuck until 11:10 when I turned it over to BBC1 to watch Oliver Stone’s JFK, choosen over Red Dwarf. It goes on for 3 hours though! And by 1 I just couldn’t keep my eyes open.

I guess this will give me an excuse to buy the DVD though :D. As a side note I am currently rewriting this – ie, the version you are reading is the rewriten version as yet again pLog lost my post due to authentication problems. It seems there is no way to recover lost posts either. But anyway what else is news? Well yesterday I spent my time at the skatepark with James. That has provided some interesting stories that will fill another post.

Also my efforts to video tape every episode of Dawson’s Creek continue but at the moment E4 are showing series 5. I really need series 3 or 4 as I am planning to buy series 2 on DVD but that still leaves me with a 2 series gap and I want to watch them all in order. It’s a hard life.

Despite the freedom of summer, a steady routine appears to have developed none the less. Each day when I wake it is time to update Branch Planet and a few other websites that need constant attention such as Worfolk News and TV Forge. And of course, check my emails. Something I used to hide away from but now I am staying on top of surprisingly.

>Today has a slightly different format, however. I am heading off to the Works skatepark with James to continue the skate video. I managed to clear two hours of tape space ready for the event so we should be able to get loads of footage. Well providing there is enough interesting stuff to video and the battery holds out.

As for editing the footage, my PCMCIA firewire card arrived yesterday and is now providing me with 3 full size 6 pin firewire ports. The mini port on the back of my laptop is now pretty much unusable due to my cable being messed up and because I now have so many wires running behind my laptop now that I have more extras and a new multi-socket to fit them all in.

As for Google News I am still nervously waiting to hear back from them.