Missives from the Technocave

And Now That I've Upgraded to 2.6…

Widge — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 23:49:44 +0000

Testing, testing…let's see if this fixed it.

Don't Mind Me.

Widge — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 22:55:05 +0000

Just testing a bug in 2.51. Go back to whatever it is you were doing.

Amazon MAB Replacement?

Widge — Fri, 30 May 2008 06:18:49 +0000

I really wish there was a replacement for the Amazon MAB tool. Why is it so goddamn difficult to ping Amazon and collect an ASIN? You would think there would be a Greasemonkey script that would do this, or at least some way of pinging AWS to do it.

I would barter free DVDs with somebody who could write one. Or point me at one. Because I'm finding jack all when Googling for something.

My New Mascot

Widge — Wed, 07 May 2008 19:45:55 +0000

I want to take him on tour with me.

A Nice Coda to the Trip

Widge — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 18:11:21 +0000

Sitting at the gate awaiting my flight. On the airport wireless because…well, I'm me. And over the PA I hear (paraphrased) "Folks, I know there's a lot of people in the gate area waiting for standby seats. And I want to let you know that the chances are slim to none that that's gonna happen. The Pope was in town this weekend and everybody came in to see him and now they're trying to get home again. Your own hope is that there are people who checked in at home on their computers and we don't know if they're actually here at the airport or not. So as Jesse Jackson says, 'Keep hope alive!'"

As a P.S. to the coda, there was a booth at Comic-Con that was selling Exorcism Kits. "The Pope needs your help!" Priceless.

The New Yorker Hotel Business Center

Widge — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 08:00:46 +0000

This promises high speed internet. This connection is about as high speed as me, in full snow ski wear, running through neck deep Jello while angry ferrets try to gnaw the eyebrows from my forehead.

In other words, it's utter shite. So much so that I'm blogging this on my phone because it is faster. If I could hook the printer to my phone my boarding pass would have been sorted a half hour ago. It's a testament to how much I don't want to have to–

Oh, downloading the driver will take an hour. Fuck it, I'm finding a Kinkos.

Blast From the Past

Widge — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 09:20:16 +0000

Cleaning out file folders from the old desk. Found these.

Yes, cassette labels created for my old band, The Frame.

Crossposted From My StumbleUpon Blog

Widge — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 05:10:33 +0000

Um…a dude named Gorbichov gave me a thumbs down because I'm NOT Kevin Smith? WTF is that about? Did I portray myself as Kevin Smith and he was disappointed that I lied to him? No! Or is it just he's on a mission to thumbs down everyone who ISN'T Kevin Smith? Pretty rude, man. Pret-ty rude.

You're not the only disappointed that I'm not Kevin Smith. I'm pretty disappointed about it myself.

I'm on StumbleUpon here, BTW. Friend me if you're on it.

Update at Last

Widge — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 22:32:00 +0000

Okay, here's the news.

First, CreateSpace is giving me fits. I'm trying to get the audiobook for Love Letters reissued from there, but three attempts at uploading the ZIP file of my .AIF files is going nowhere. And so far support is unhelpful. Not to be a spiteful ass, but is this why the service is free? There's got to be some answer besides sending them a CD of the audio files–I was hoping uploading would take less time, but we'll see. Hell, if they don't work, there's always CafePress, but the joy of CreateSpace was getting them listed on Amazon. I'm trying to work through it, because I want to do Sunday Before You the same way and then more audio beyond that.

Second, as you might have seen, Daily Kicksplode is on permanent hiatus. If you didn't see it, it's because it never really caught on as far as having an audience went. And I just can't spend any time on things that aren't pulling their weight. I loved the concept of the site, but maybe someday if we go full-time with this nonsense, we can re-launch it. But for now, it's done.

Third, Colors Are Overrated is not on hiatus, but posting over there will be slow. As I do have a passion for black but it too has not enough of an audience.

Fourth, my first children's book is online. Emily & Oscar is up at emilyandoscar.com. I'll be building it online as well.

More news shortly, I believe. Stay tuned.

George Clooney Makes Small Films Profitable. Yes.

Widge — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 02:59:53 +0000

So I started responding to a post over at Sore Eyes regarding George Clooney as the Last Movie Star and then I realized it would be rude to leave a small essay as a comment, so here goes. Go read that first.

I agree that Mr. Smith has been in some eminently forgettable films. I AM LEGEND and I ROBOT spring to mind. And I think that among his action flicks, ID4 will probably be remembered as fondly as any other Irwin Allen film or perhaps as the 90s version of something like DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL. But, in Smith's defense, while he knows that the cash comes from his stint as Action Guy, he does still strive for things like ALI and PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS. He did work for Redford in BAGGER VANCE and although Schepisi might have a warm spot in only my heart for ROXANNE, Smith was in his version of SIX DEGREES.

But Clooney's box office has come from mainly the OCEAN's series (which was driven by star power) and *cough* BATMAN. So yeah, my question would be what kind of deal does Clooney have so that he can be in a string of films that don't have huge box office gains and yet still basically pick and choose whatever he wants. Maybe he makes that much money off of ER reruns? I have no idea. I wanted to say it's because the small films he's in still turn a profit because they *are* small, and maybe that's the case. SOLARIS underperformed given its budget. But SYRIANA almost doubled its production budget in worldwide box office, THREE KINGS made a profit worldwide, PEACEMAKER doubled its budget worldwide, and the rest…well, Box Office Mojo doesn't have budgets listed for them and I'm too lazy to go hunt them up right now. And I'm sure Clooney is who sold the tickets to those.

Clooney does have star power. And I think he's an excellent actor. Even though I'm one of the five people on Earth who didn't enjoy O BROTHER, it's still the film in which (among his that I've seen anyway) he does the most acting and isn't playing his usual Clooney on-screen persona.

I'm not quite sure if I even made a point in here. And I don't feel like formatting this properly. Just had to put this somewhere. And oh, that's what this is for, isn't it?