Chuggnutt!

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  • Items of recent awesomeness

    Some of these links aren’t as shiny-new as they were when I started this post, but even so:

    The CDC’s zombie apocalypse preparedness plan: Yes, the CDC is all over the possibility of a zombie apocalypse. For real.

    If zombies did start roaming the streets, CDC would conduct an investigation much like any other disease outbreak. CDC would provide technical assistance to cities, states, or international partners dealing with a zombie infestation. This assistance might include consultation, lab testing and analysis, patient management and care, tracking of contacts, and infection control (including isolation and quarantine).

    Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn move trailer: I knew Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson were making a Tintin movie, but I didn’t realize just how OMGAWESOME it was going to be until I saw the trailer:

    The Javascript PC emulator: pure amazing geekery. This is an x86 processor being emulated in Javascript inside a browser. And it’s running Linux. To be clear: what is essentially a full computer is running independently inside the browser. Which theoretically means you could run, well, anything inside of it.

  • Superman

    A few weeks ago I checked out Superman from the library (the first Christopher Reeve movie) so I could watch it with the kids; it had been far too long since I last saw it, and the kids (naturally) needed an introduction to the best “Superman” movie, well, ever. And I have to say, even though it was made in 1978 and some of the effects are, well, 1978, it holds up.

    I loved the Superman movies when I was a kid; considering the only previous “on screen” Superman adventures around were basically the old George Reeves ’50s television series and the Super Friends cartoons, those movies were like magic when they came out. They turned what I could imagine about a live adaption of the comic and turned it on its ear, they were that good. And Christopher Reeve was a genius bit of casting for that role—completely filled it out like nobody has before or since.

    I’m thinking of the first two movies, primarily, since they hold together relatively well. I was pretty excited about Superman III when it came out, but even then I could tell it wasn’t up to par for the first two; they gave short shrift to Margot Kidder’s Lois Lane (completely ignoring the circumstances of the second movie, it seemed), for instance, and adding Richard Pryor as a campy, weird sort of villain just didn’t click.

    And then Superman IV was just a mess, obvious even to me as a kid at the time.

    I never have watched Superman Returns, which purports to ignore III and IV and operate as a sequel instead to II. Too many bad reviews and from what I read about the movie itself, too much of pretty much the same things they already did in the first two movies, and Brandon Routh just isn’t Superman. And I’m sorry, but the costume looked horrible.

    I actually rather enjoyed the “Lois & Clark: New Adventure of Superman” show that was on during the 90s. Dean Cain was no Christopher Reeve, but he held up.

    And I love the Animated Series that was out around that same timeframe (and which continued into the Justice League series); I haven’t seen all of the episodes but I think it’s probably the best TV series done for the character.

    I haven’t watched “Smallville” though. No real reason, just missed the boat I guess.

    Now, you can probably see where this is going.

    So there’s this new Superman movie coming out, slated for December 2012… Man of Steel. I’m not sure what to make of it yet, but it’s got some pros and cons (in my mind) going for it.

    The good:

    • It’s a reboot. No more sequels or trying to tie into the past movies, this is a case where a reboot is definitely needed. And frankly, I think they can reboot Superman while foregoing the origin story (which I’ve railed against before); everybody knows Superman’s origin. Give it a nod during the credits, or in the first few minutes of the movie in flashbacks or something.
    • Zack Snyder is directing, Christopher Nolan is producing. Snyder directed 300 and Watchmen; Nolan rebooted Batman (and did it right). These are the guys you want doing a Superman movie.
    • The effects. We’re finally in an era where the effects can be believable and amazing and done right; in this case (since I didn’t see Superman Returns, but have to assume the effects were good) I’m thinking of Hancock, which for me pretty well nailed it in the effects department.

    The bad:

    • Well, I don’t know if this is bad, but I’m leery of the casting; I’m not against a Brit taking the role (Henry Cavill(?) has been confirmed as Superman), but Superman is such a tough role to cast properly. Doesn’t matter who they cast, I’ll be skeptical.
    • General Zod as the villain. Not again… General Zod was the main villain of Superman II (also featured in the beginning of the original movie), a thinly-veiled variant of Zod was in the Lois & Clark TV show (“Lord Nor”), and Zod cropped up again apparently on Smallville. (Not to mention, Zod has apparently been playing a prominent role in the recent comic books.) So, what, it was, I’ve got an idea! Let’s use General Zod as the villain in the Superman reboot! Seriously? No, it’s a tired idea. The smartest thing Batman Begins did was to not start with any of the usual villains; let’s see that here. Look, I know Superman is a hard character to pair with a challenging villain: He’s Superman. But it can be done. Frankly, learning that Zod was chosen as the villain again was disappointing as dampens any excitement I might have felt about the movie.
    • DC Comics really hasn’t had much success (with the exception of the last two Batman movies) with any of their franchised properties over the last, oh, dozen years or so. If the new Green Lantern movie coming out this year tanks, then that doesn’t bode very well for Man of Steel.

    Okay, deep breath… Yes, I’m excited for this movie. I hope it’s as good as the original Superman. But… well, we’ll see, won’t we?

  • Yuri’s Night

    Tomorrow, April 12th, is a pretty momentous date: it is the 50th anniversary of the first human being to launch into space (which took place on April 12, 1961) by Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. Appropriately enough, the 12th is also when Yuri’s Night is celebrated, a sort of unofficial holiday “world space party” that commemorates that first flight.

    As someone who grew up with a deep interest in space and astronomy (not to mention science and science fiction) I love the idea of Yuri’s Night and I love what the website is doing: presenting a registry of events that are taking place around the world for the event, and letting people register more at no cost. Mostly it seems entirely fitting to celebrate the occasion; it would be neat to have a Yuri’s Night event here in Bend, but it seems the nearest is Portland.

    50 years of manned spaceflight. That’s something to think about.

  • Twitter cleaning

    I figure I need to clean up my @chuggnutt Twitter account (and probably the @hackbend and @brewsite ones as well).

    Not that I have an extraordinary number of followers, or people I’m following—522 and 425, respectively—but I realized there’s a fair amount of “noise” on what amounts to my personal Twitter account and there are accounts I’m also following on either @hackbend or @brewsite, and I don’t really need to see redundant tweets.

    So I’ll be going through my personal Twitter account and weeding out accounts I’m following, and figure if anyone’s using something like who.unfollowed.me and gets offended that I unfollow them, I can at least point to my criteria:

    • If the account hasn’t had an update in 2 months or more, unfollowed.
    • If I’m also already following that account on @hackbend or @brewsite, I’ll unfollow on @chuggnutt.
    • Unless it’s someone I know personally, or have interacted with on @chuggnutt more often, then I’ll keep the (redundant) follow.
    • Of course there are accounts I just find interesting even if I never interact with them, so I’ll keep following those.
    • If the account seems spammy, or keeps posting repetitive tweets, unfollowed.
    • If the account is something like a brewery that I’m not already following on @brewsite—or a Bend business or similar I’m not already following on @hackbend—I’ll follow on those respective accounts and unfollow on @chuggnutt.

    I’m not too worried about the followers to my account; it’s been awhile since I’ve had to do a bot/porn sweep and block accounts, and I haven’t really seen any I’d consider blockable come through lately.

    …I should probably go through and clean up my Facebook sometime, too.

  • The TV post (Spring ’11)

    I usually end up making these type of rants posts this time of year because it’s at the point where the frustration has built and I need to trip the release valve. Well, frustration and just general commentary.

    For instance, “V“: I wrote about this previously, and, well, I’ve bailed. I don’t know what happened to the production or writing of the second season, but when a major plotline is the Visitors’ obsession with finding and destroying the human soul—well, I should hope the ludicrous nature of this is evident in itself.

    Plus, the “science fiction” aspect of the show finally diverged entirely into “fantasy.” Last week’s episode highlighted the human resistance creating a “DNA bomb” that would, I guess, scramble a person’s DNA (which the Visitors are purportedly collecting). Um, what? I didn’t know we had such crazy technology. And never mind the Visitor method of collecting DNA samples from humans: giant spiked Iron Maiden-looking devices tortuously exsanguinating the victim for a single small vial’s worth of DNA. Um, hello? We have this advanced technology known as a “cotton swab” which does the same thing.

    So I’m done with “V”.

    That’s the big one. I’m still watching and enjoying (to various degrees) “Hawaii Five-0”, “The Event”, “Law & Order (Various Flavors)”, “American Idol”, and the other usual suspects. I think I doze through the various “CSI”s.

    “Hawaii Five-0” I enjoy because there’s not a lot of thinking involved, and it looks good. My brother has the amusing observation that they are some sort of crazy Gestapo force but I suppose to a certain extent that’s what makes it entertaining.

    “The Event” is definitely filling in certain roles left vacant by both “Lost” and “24”, a fairly decent show (not dragging out the mysteries too much like “Lost” did) though lately the editing or something has been really choppy; when they jump from plotline to plotline, it’s never quite obvious what timeframe they’re dealing with, as you go from one storyline that’s taking place in the middle of the day to one in the middle of the night.

    I finally concluded that each thread must be self-contained and not happening concurrently—otherwise someone producing that show has to get their editing and sense of time straightened out.

    Not too much to say about “American Idol” yet other than, I’m glad the assholes were booted last week, and damn, that Hailey girl acts like she’s pole dancing on stage. My nickname for her is Stripper Pole.

    And the first rule of this season’s Idol drinking game: take a shot every time Steven Tyler uses the word “beautiful.”

  • RIP Dog

    Our dog Porter had been ailing for a time—a mix of allergies, bad legs and joints, a ruptured disc, and possible Cushing’s, among other things—and sometime in the wee hours of Friday morning last it all finally caught up with him and he passed away fairly peacefully.

    I’m not delving into sentiment or stories, suffice to say it was an odd weekend and I wanted to mark the passing here. And no, there are no plans to get another dog.

  • Lego video games

    For some reason the other day (other week?) I was thinking about the various Lego video game franchises out in the wild:

    • Lego Star Wars (2 games)
    • Lego Indiana Jones (2 games)
    • Lego Batman and Robin
    • Lego Harry Potter

    These games are actually really fun, and I got to thinking about other franchises that might be good fits:

    • Lego Pirates of the Caribbean
    • Lego Matrix
    • Lego Lord of the Rings
    • Lego James Bond
    • Lego Spider-Man
    • Lego Back to the Future
    • Lego Die Hard

    (Even though I just came up with that last one while writing this, it makes me smile; something about “Yippee-ki-yay” and Lego minifigs is just too good to pass up.)

    So I typed in “Lego video games” in Google and linked to Wikipedia’s List of Lego video games and lo and behold, not only is there a third Lego Star Wars coming out this year… but there actually is a Lego Pirates of the Caribbean coming out as well.

    Huh.

  • My Ignite Bend presentation

    Yes, it’s been weeks, but I’m finally talking about my Ignite Bend presentation—it helps that it’s finally on YouTube, since I’m going to embed it here.

    I didn’t have to present until after intermission, and for the most part I was fine the first half, with occasional bouts of nerves. But standing to the side, lined up, waiting for my turn was nerve-wracking.

    But once I hit the stage, two things surprised me: it really went very quickly—it was over almost before I knew it—and it was a lot of fun.

    The only snafu I ran into was with my beer—as befitting Ignite Bend tradition, I had a bottle of Jubelale on stage with me; it was incorporated into my presentation and I was taking occasional sips. But! I failed to account for any spillage—which of course is exactly what happened. It’s really not obvious when you watch the YouTube video—if you didn’t know I spilled, you’d wonder why I talk about “cleaning the floor” and “afraid to take a sip.”

    The spill happens right around the “bottling” slide, of course. The beer foamed up and spilled down the bottle as I drank, running down my hands and dripping on the stage floor. It threw me for a few seconds, but I was able to deal with it.

    And the presentation turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself:

    And, in case you’re interested in my actual slideshow, the Google Docs version is here.

  • Help fix homebrewing legislation in Oregon

    I’m cross-posting this with The Brew Site because it’s a hugely important issue for homebrewers in Oregon. This is an email from the Brewers Association that’s been hitting the inboxes of Oregon homebrewers over the past week, and it’s for a good cause: supporting Oregon Senate Bill 444 which seeks to amend the 30-year-old law regarding homebrewed beer which was reinterpreted last year.

    Many of you are likely aware that the Oregon Liquor Control Commission determined last year that under existing Oregon law, homebrew cannot be consumed outside the home where the beer was produced.

    The American Homebrewers Association is supporting an effort by the Oregon Home Brewers Alliance (OHBA) to resolve this issue. The OHBA has been working with Senator Floyd Prozanski, a homebrewer, on Senate Bill 444 along with the already filed amendments to SB 444. While there are other bills addressing homebrewing, the OHBA and the AHA support SB 444 as the most comprehensive of these in restoring to legality all of the activities homebrewers participated in prior to the Oregon Liquor Control Commission’s revision of their interpretation of homebrew law last year, including entering homebrew competitions and sharing homebrew at club meetings.

    How Can You Help?
    Senate Bill 444 is being scheduled for a hearing before the Senate Business, Transportation and Economic Development Committee Thursday, February 10. We ask you to take a few minutes to call or email the members of the committee and politely urge them to support the passage of SB 444 along with Senator Prozanski’s amendments to the bill. The committee members need to hear from you if this bill is to succeed. Contacting legislators is quick and easy, and every contact they get from homebrewers will help ensure our success.

    Senate Business, Transportation and Economic Development Committee Contact Information:

    Sen. Lee Beyer, Chair
    sen.leebeyer@state.or.us
    Capitol Phone: 503-986-1706

    Sen. Jason Atkinson, Vice-Chair
    sen.jasonatkinson@state.or.us
    Capitol Phone: 503-986-1703
    District Phone: 541-282-6502

    Sen. Ginny Burdick
    sen.ginnyburdick@state.or.us
    Capitol Phone: 503-986-1718

    Sen. Chris Edwards
    sen.chrisedwards@state.or.us
    Capitol Phone: 503-986-1707

    Sen. Fred Girod
    sen.fredgirod@state.or.us
    Capitol Phone: 503-986-1709
    District Phone: 503-769-4321

    Sen. Bruce Starr
    sen.brucestarr@state.or.us
    Capitol Phone: 503-986-1715
    District Phone: 503-352-0922

    Thank you for your support of homebrewers, your action could make the difference in whether or not this legislation becomes law. Please forward this message on to any other Oregon residents that you feel would be interested in supporting this bill.

  • On the road to Ignite Bend

    In my previous post I talked about submitting a proposal to Ignite Bend (and what Ignite actually is). Today was the official “reveal” of the nine speakers selected to present, and yes, I was picked.

    (I actually received the official email yesterday.)

    Now of course the real nerves and doubts set in. I’ve already started working on my slides—several days ago in fact—and it’s immediately apparent that distilling down information about brewing beer (in “10 Easy Steps”!) while coordinating with 15-second intervals on the slide rotation is no small chore.

    Although it occurred to me that I don’t have to cover every piece of information in the speaking portion of the presentation—that’s what the slides are for. So the trick is in balancing slides between humor and information and letting them do half the work.

    One of my problems in talking about beer and brewing is, of course, that I can talk on and on about the subject and unload a lot of information about it; so this will be an interesting challenge.