Category: Flotsam and Jetsam

04
Feb
2009
21:45

No-wait Cocoa!

When I make hot chocolate, I used to warm up milk then add the cocoa mix. However the water kettle is much faster. The problem there is that then your cocoa is so hot, you can’t drink for 15 minutes. Tonight I found the magical solution.
Boil Kettle. Pour water over cocoa until it a little over half way full. Then fill the rest of the way with cold milk! Now it has the creamy goodness of the milk, the speed of the kettle, and is at a drinkable temperature as soon as your done! Awesome!

23
Aug
2008
12:06

The conspiracy of Sara(h)s

I worked with an actress last night named Sarah who was extremely cool and great to work with. This got me thinking of something that had occurred to me before. I have never met a Sara(h) I didn’t like. More than that the Sara(h)s I have known have generally been way above the norm in terms of absolute awesomosity.
Back in my pizza delivery days I worked with a girl named Sarah who was one of the coolest women I’d ever met. Then later when I was working in IT for an insurance company I worked with a completely different but equally cool Sara. My wife’s middle name is Sara. Anyone got Mulder or Scully’s contact info? I think this needs to be looked into.

01
Jul
2008
23:10

My top 10 favorite robots

After seeing “Wall-e” (which, by the way is one of the best movies ever) my brain decided to start thinking about my favorite movie robots. So here’s my top 10 favorite Movie/TV robots (not necessarily in any particular order):

  1. Wall-E: this movie kicked so much ass in so many ways I don’t know where to begin. The virtual camerawork was better than most actual camera work in most movies. Wall-E himself was just awesome beyond words. EVE (or I-Bot as I called her) was also pretty damn awesome
  2. R2-D2 (honorable mention to C-3PO): While I think R2 is the far cooler bot, you gotta give props to his robot life mate too. These two are robot royalty. Star Wars was just full of so many great bots. The Gonk droid, the mouse droid; you could probably fill a list with just your favorite Star Wars droids.
  3. Tom Servo (honorable mention to Crow T. Robot): MST3K was just brilliant and Kevin Murphy’s version of Servo will always be one of the great bots for me.
  4. Maximillian (honorable mention to V.I.N.CENT.): “The Black Hole” is one of those movies that holds a special place of childhood nostalgia for me despite the fact that the ending is an absolute bizarre cinematic drug trip. These two bots are each worthy of their own place in robot history with more honorable mentions to Bob and S.T.A.R. but in the end I think Maximillian with his spinning blades is the more memorable and iconic robot.
  5. Yul Brenner in “Westworld”: A classic.
  6. Robot from “Lost In Space”: There was always something about him that I loved. What boy didn’t want a best friend like that!
  7. The Iron Giant: Vin Diesel’s best role to date!
  8. The Terminator: While the T-1000 may have been cooler in a lot off ways, it was the original Arnold-nator that will always be the classic.
  9. The Cylons: There was a time when I would have said the original series’ centurions but the new BSG is such an awesome show that I gotta go with those fleshjobs now. The new centurions are pretty sweet too.
  10. HAL 9000: I’ve never even actually seen this movie but that glowing red circle and eerily clam voice have so permeated pop culture that he makes it to my list

I’m sure I’ll probably think of a ton more that I’ll wish I’d put on here as soon as I publish this, but those are the ones that first came to my head so that says something about them. Keep in mind these are MY favorite robots. The ones that for whatever reason made an impact on me. Many people may cry “Where’s Johnny 5? Optimus Prime?” Etc., but there are many famous and iconic robots that just don’t hold any personal value to me. I never saw “Short Circuit”. I never watched “Transformers”. Daleks and “Blade Runner” replicants aren’t actually robots. So those are my picks. Feel free to add your own in the comments!
Random bonus tidbit:
I always thought “Gort” was cool too but I never actually saw “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” In fact I think I first became aware of Gort on the cover of a Ringo Starr Album.

16
Jun
2008
0:21

Comments are GO!

After an epic battle involving support tickets with my web host and Movable Type, we finally slew the goblin that was eating my comments. I believe that everything is back in working order. If not, feel free to email me.

13
Jun
2008
13:12

Wonk-a-sauraus

As some may have noticed, my blog is way wonky. I have no idea how long it’s been broken since I only just noticed but for quite some time now the ability to comment has probably been broken. I am in talks with both Movable Type support and my web host trying to figure out what’s up. For the moment, comments and trackbacks are disabled to try and reduce the errors that they cause.

22
Apr
2008
21:32

Cary Grant, George Clooney and Milkshakes

Been incredibly busy on the acting front. Not that I’ve ever been that good about blog updating but I like to pretend I have an excuse. In the past two days I played Michael Clayton (George Clooney played him in the film) for a student directing class and also did a scene from North By Northwest where I played Cary Grant’s role. This was for a college production class where we performed in studio with a three camera setup. We rehearsed it many times so the camera people could get their shots and the control room could get their switching between shots choreography down. It was quite a lot of fun.
I’d seen “North By Northwest” but it was some time ago. The scene we did was the scene in the train car where Cary Grant first meets Eva Marie Saint. It really struck me how incredibly saucy this scene was for its time. A sexually aggressive woman industrial designer. Kudos to Ernest Lehman!
As a side tangent, Larry and I have both been trying to be healthier in our eating habits. In an effort to remain healthy yet indulge our sweet tooth, Larry concocted a brilliant treat. We had already been quite the fans of sugar-free chocolate Jell-o pudding. Now it is important to note that that pre-made stuff isn’t nearly as good as the powder that you add milk to and make yourself. Trust us. So Larry had the idea of mixing the pudding mix with some milk and ice and making a milkshake. from there we also added some peanut butter and for nutritional value added a scoop of “Muscle Milk” supplement. This has now become one of our absolute favorite treats. Totally sugar-free, only as much fat as the milk you use and can be a great dessert or a meal replacement if you add the Muscle Milk. Chocolate-peanut butter icy shakes. You’ll thank us.

07
Apr
2008
17:46

Six Word Memoir

Thanks to Oslowe, I have been tagged in that virulent, vampiric, spreading like the undead way known as the Internet Meme (I actually don’t mind, it was just a fun comparison).

There are Rules for the Interwebs.
The Six-Words Meme was originally started by Smith Magazine.
Legend has it that Hemingway was once challenged to write a story in only six words. His response? “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” Last year, SMITH Magazine re-ignited the recountre by asking our readers for their own six-word memoirs. They sent in short life stories in droves, from the bittersweet (“Cursed with cancer, blessed with friends”) and poignant (“I still make coffee for two”) to the inspirational (“Business school? Bah! Pop music? Hurrah”) and hilarious (“I like big butts, can’t lie”).
Here are the rules:
1) Write your own six word memoir.
2) Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like.
3) Link to the person that tagged you in your post, and to the original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere.
4) Tag at least five more blogs with links.
5) Don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play.
6) Have fun.
I do not make these rules.

Heath’s six word memoir:
Master of dreams, seeker of actions
Sorry, victims!
Da Grr
Andy
Vicki
Delle
Jupe

16
Mar
2008
13:11

Coolest Desktop wallpaper site ever

www.vladstudio.com
You can download “low quality” versions of all the wallpapers for free or you pay a membership for “high quality” versions. I say “low quality” in quotes because even the free versions look awesome to me. I’m so impressed that I think I’ll spring for a lifetime membership to support them. Right now they’re running an Easter special of $19.99 for life.

28
Jan
2008
19:30

Thoughts on “The Twilight Zone”

I have always been a big fan of “The Twilight Zone”. I remember my uncle and grandmother watching reruns when I was growing up and I think that it probably stuck in my psyche somewhere pretty deep and played a part in forming who I am.
A while back I bought the entire series on DVD (box set with episodes in order of airing). We’ve started watching them from the beginning and I’ve noticed some peculiar things. Now let me first say that, yes, I do realize that TV was a completely different beast back then as well as movies and probably just general storytelling techniques. I still love this show but have noticed it’s tendency to assume that the viewer is so stupid as to be just shy of brain dead. This is kind of funny because on the other hand it can go to some pretty cerebral places too so it almost seems as if it’s catering to really smart folks and people who are dumber than a box of non-sentient rocks.
For example, in one episode, Burgess Meredith plays a man who loves to read. So much so that at lunch time he goes into the vault of the bank where he works to read. One day while in the vault, the world gets destroyed by H-bombs but he survives since he was in the vault. We see all this on screen. Well we don’t actually see the H-bombs and such but it’s all illustrated quite clearly.
Then, upon leaving the vault and seeing the state of the world, he monologues to himself (since everyone else is dead) something along the lines of:
“Oh my god! The world was destroyed by H-bombs! Everyone is dead except for me! *a look of realization* I survived because I was in the vault!”
Well. That was a bit of totally unnecessary exposition! And we just won’t mention the two dimensional character that was his harpy of a wife who refused to let him read at home.
Then there was another episode where these astronauts go missing off the radar as they launch. It turns out they’ve crash landed on “an asteroid” as they call it. An asteroid with an perfectly human compatible atmosphere and mountains and stuff. O.K. so they really should have just called it a planet. Then they have a conversation about how, from the looks of things, the sun appears to be the same distance and trajectory as from the Earth meaning that they must be on an asteroid in the same orbit as the Earth!
So basically, five minutes into the episode, they’ve just hit you over the head with their “twist” ending. OMG! It wasn’t an asteroid at all! It turns out they had just crashed in the Nevada desert! All that strife and killing wasn’t necessary after all!
As I said, I just find these things fun to nitpick. I still think The Twilight Zone is an awesome, brilliant, landmark show.

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