Monthly Archives: October 2006

  • The Prestige, PlayStation 2, and Programming

    Chris BenardMovies, Personal, School

    Update 1: Added Krystal Meyers picture and GH2 news.
    Update 2: Fixed “lost”/”lot” typo, thanks to John McCain.

    Before I begin on the title’s topics, I’d like to begin with another: Christian Music. Normally, I dislike it because it’s completely boring, and of course the content is verbal diarrhea. However, recently, I prepaid for two years (MasterCard buy one year, get one free special) of Yahoo! Music Unlimited. YMU is really awesome, because it lets me listen to and download unlimited amounts of music. By using FairUse4WM, you can even completely strip the DRM and take your media wherever you want.

    I don’t even hardly ever use the download functionality, though. I use YMU to keep me entertained at work while programming. I rate the music when I listen to it, and YMU will add those ratings to my preferences. I can then listen to “My Station”, which will use those ratings to make further recommendations to me.

    Krystal Meyers
    Krystal Meyers
    With that said, that’s not how I found Christian Music. They also have advertising placed on some of the entry pages in the program, and I clicked on this Krystal Meyers person’s advertisement for her new album. Now granted, I clicked on her because she’s hot, but in my defense, the advertisement didn’t say it was Christian music. However, I think she is an awesome singer. You should check out her music.

    On Friday, Chris, who I got to sign up for YMU as well, even pointed out that I was jamming to a song about abstinence, The Situation. I don’t normally pay attention to lyrics, but I found myself singing “Maybe that’s the beauty of grace!!!” to myself later after listening to the song of the same title. Her music is just that good, that it makes me momentarily forget that I’m an atheist. Chris said he’s worried that I’m turning into a Christian. After all, I did leave our Shreveport Atheists meeting 2 seconds earlier than he.

    I didn’t want any of that as part of the title of this post, and it would have ruined the P thing I had going on there, so sorry that you had to read that first.

    I went to see The Prestige with Joey and Natalie last night. That was probably the best movie that I’ve seen in a long time. It rivaled Hero, and I’m not sure which would win. It stars Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale. Christian Bale is my favorite actor ever. It was directed by the same director as Batman Begins and Memento. Those are two of my favorite movies ever. It also had Scarlett Johansson in a starring role, one of the hottest and best actresses ever. (Also, she’s released some kind of single that I heard on YMU that sounds like Frank Sinatra. I don’t like it.)

    The point is, there were a lot of “ever”s in that previous paragraph, and they all point to The Prestige being an awesome movie. Also, David Bowie plays Nikola Tesla, an unlikely but excellent performance. And who doesn’t like Michael Caine? Go see this movie.

    Also, Brandon and white Bryan were sitting really close to us and we talked to them right before and after the movie. That was cool seeing them, since I hadn’t seen them in forever. Brandon asked what drugs I had been on, since he hadn’t seen me in forever and I’ve lost a lot of weight since then.

    Before the movie, I hung out at Joey’s house for a few hours and we played ping pong for a while. That was excellent; I hadn’t played in forever, and I’m out of practice. He also mentioned that his friend/coworker was trying to get rid of his PlayStation 2. Apparently, the friend only wanted 40 bucks for a non-slim PS2 with controller and cables. I had the cash on me, so I told Joey to tell the friend, who was also going to the movie, to bring the PS2. I bought it, so now I have a PS2 sandwiched between my Xbox and Xbox 360. Guitar Hero 2, here I come, especially since I’ll be able to play the Top Gear theme song! (Get well soon, Hamster.) Update: I just pre-ordered Guitar Hero 2 Game and Guitar and got a nifty little t-shirt to show for it.

    I spent most of today catching up on the last week’s TV watching. I watched Battlestar Galactica, two CSIs, two The Offices, a ton of Colbert Report and Daily Shows, Mythbusters, CSI: New York, and a couple of episodes of The Way of the Master (more evidence for Chris).

    I think I’ve worked out my weekend schedule. On Fridays, I either do things with friends or accidentally fall asleep at 8pm. On Saturdays, I catch up on TV and lie to myself and tell myself I’ll do schoolwork. On Sundays, I actually do schoolwork. That seems to be the general way things have been going lately.

    I was actually semi-productive today as well, though. While watching the Colbert Reports and Daily Shows, I worked more on my Lab2 for CSC 460, finishing the business and data layers for the program. I’ll probably do the game manager part tomorrow.

    When going to find the links for this blog entry, Natalie’s myspace is very hard to read, and it reminded me of Soda‘s myspace. Her myspace makes my Firefox go very slowly and I can’t even click on her picture because of the marquees. I can’t make people stop ruining the Internet and clogging the tubes, but I can write a bookmarklet to remove all that crap. Stupid WordPress won’t let me put the actual link here, but you can grab the Fix MySpace Bookmarklet from that page that I created. Once it’s in your bookmarks or links and you’re on an ugly myspace page, just click it to remove all that ugly stuff. It works like a charm and makes Natalie and Soda’s pages legible.

    Sorry for the extremely long post, not that anyone reads this.

  • Accepting Applications For My New Programmer Friend

    Chris BenardPersonal

    Much like Steven Colbert and his new black friend campaign, applications for my new programmer friend are now being accepted. I’ve lost my existing one when he met someone from myspace when the person moved back to Shreveport. Now, plans are being broken without notifying me, I’m not invited to places, and/or I’m never involved in conversation because such conversations are always (and I don’t mean continually; I mean continuously) being had with the previously mentioned myspace person (whom I’ve met and is a perfectly nice person) via phone or text. I don’t know what his deal is anymore.

    Therefore, I’m accepting applications to be my new programmer friend via the comments section in this post. Please include your friend resume addressing the following requirements and desired qualifications.

    Requirements:

    • Must be proficient in .Net (Preferably C#, but I will entertain VB.Net)
    • Must be of above average intelligence
    • Must passionately care for the English language and be willing to be corrected and willing to correct me when needed
    • Must be local to the Shreveport, LA area
    • Must like Chinese movies (the kind where the hero dies in the end and is usually subtitled unless on DVD)
    • Must not have a bubbly personality
    • Must not be moving any time soon (since I don’t want to help another programmer friend move again, to cut my possible losses)

    Desired qualifications:

    • Familiar with one or more other programming technologies as well (PHP, RoR, VB6, C++, Java, etc)
    • Remembers what it was like to use DOS 6.22 (or at least know how to use most DOS commands such as nslookup, ping, tracert, and each command’s associated options)
    • Comfortable with networking technologies (TCP/IP, OSI Model, DNS, DHCP, etc)
    • Knowledgeable about Microsoft Windows Server 2003 technologies (active directory, NTFRS, DFS, etc)
    • Doesn’t play WoW (I can live with it if you do, I just don’t want to hear about WoW all the time)

    There is no cut off date. I will make a decision when I have selected from available candidates. This post will be updated when applications are no longer being accepted.

    Thank you in advance for submitting your application via the comments section attached to this post.

    Equal opportunity programmer friend. Perl programmers need not apply.

  • Contrast Shower For The Mind

    Chris BenardTelevision

    Contrast showers have long been regarded as a “way to stimulate vitality and promote detoxification”. Basically you get in the shower and you continually vary the temperature widely. It’s supposed to exercise your central nervous system or something by going from hot to cold several times.

    I just had a contrast shower for the mind. You won’t understand that until you finish reading, so just bear with me while you read this.

    Chris and Natalie came over to my house to watch TV. Well actually it was because Natalie was in town from Baton Rouge and we wanted to go do something with her but Shreveport sucks. We ended up watching the latest episodes of LOST, South Park, and Family Guy.

    LOST was simply amazing. That reminds me that I should give an obligatory shoutout to the best LOST blog ever. The episode was without flaw and I’m glad it’s finally back. I was really starting to miss it, but the Dharma Initiative (see that blog) videos/viral marketing kept me going in the interim.

    Then we watched the latest South Park. It wasn’t a real episode of South Park. They showed the characters from South Park a few times, but it wasn’t a real episode. See for yourself. The entire episode was a huge advertisement for World of Warcraft (purposefully not linking to it). That is the worst game ever. I played it for about 3 hours on Chris’ trial account that he had. He says I didn’t play it correctly, but I will tell you that the most fun I had in that game was going to some carnival and typing /dance a lot. WoW just sucks, as a game. If you play that game, what the hell is wrong with you?

    That was literally the worst television show I’ve ever seen. I hope that Matt and Trey, the creators of South Park, got a lot of money to sell out like that. That was the most incredible misuse of my hard drive space that could have been possible. The funniest part of the entire episode was Cartman literally having explosive diarrhea expelled on his mother. Yes, that was the funniest part, because the rest of the episode was about World of Warcraft and their loser online world.

    So, could good come from that? Yes, but not directly. After that excuse of a show came on, we watched the latest episode of Family Guy. Family guy is already one of, if not the, funniest shows on television. I had already seen the episode 3 times before I watched it tonight, and I had laughed a lot each time, but not as thorougly as this time. It was as if the South Park episode had cleansed my mental palate and made it ready for an incredible feast of intellectual enjoyment. I must consider this the equivalent to a contrast shower for the mind. I laughed tonight at Family Guy like I’ve never laughed before, if for no other reason than it was so funny in comparison to the “comedy” of South Park I had previously viewed.

    In other news, Jet Li’s Fearless is an awesome movie. I watched it twice, and I’d go again, but people just ruin movies. I’m going to stop going to the theater unless I have a really good reason to do so in the future. I’m not going to go just because it’s Friday anymore.

    I apologize for this post being slightly out of anger, but I couldn’t bottle my rage about this abomination with which Matt and Trey have decided to start the South Park season. I wish they were dead. I can’t even talk to Chris about it, because he’s one of the WoW losers, and he thinks it was a good show. He thinks I’m the stupid one for not liking it. Every time I hear people talking about “XP” or “Manna” I want to go berzerk.

    What in the world can people see in staying in a virtual world every waking moment of their life. When you start the game, you have to go around killing what look to be anthropomorphic rats. I guess some people might find them attractive. You have to do that and collect apples and gold and report back to someone who gives you new shoes. I shit you not; people spend all day and night doing this stuff. If you want to see an accurate depiction of the life of a WoW player, watch that episode of South Park. If you want to see an episode of South Park, don’t watch it.