More funnies humor
Hilary Price comes up with some odd humor in her Rhymes with Orange comic strip. Working with no regular characters or storyline to fall back on, she manages more zings than misses. Today’s strip is particularly funny for us tech geek types. And Hilary, honey, contrary to your FAQ, you are competing with the newspapers who pay you.
Snow
Hmm, one of the reasons I moved to California was to get away from shoveling and the muck. But garret is out looking for snow. Here’s the advice I gave him, somewhat amended for weblogging:
1. Get in car, start engine
2. Get on highway, head east on I-40 and I-44
3. Eventually, at I-70, turn north
4. At Buffalo, get off highway if you can
5. Get out of car and look around at 72+ inches of snow.
Micro-advertising experiment, day 13
A very odd up and down pattern is emerging in the data: up down up down and over again; people must have been really at loose ends Monday for such a high percentage to come through. Thursday was not much of a day for the ad, only four clickthroughs out of 410 views for a 0.98% CTR. The total now is 62 views from 4,340 views for a 1.43% cumulative CTR. The ad buy must be close to the end, with only 660 left, about two days. Overall site traffic seems to be up since passing 4,000 on Dec. 5, with about 900 visitors in the past three weeks.
Temporal War and Enterprise
Rick Norwood has written a very interesting column over at SFSite exploring the temporal war that is one of the core storylines of the new Star Trek series Enterprise. Worth a look.
Micro-advertising experiment, day 12
Wednesday, Wednesday was a very good day for the ad, getting eight clickthroughs out of 360 views for a 2.22% CTR and a total of 58 from 3,930 views for a 1.48% cumulative CTR. I’m not getting any emails from these visitors but I wonder: if you came through the MetaFilter ad and are visiting again I would be interested in hearing from you, tell me your impression of this site.
Micro-advertising experiment, day 11
Tuesday was another down day for the ad, getting only two clickthroughs out of 183 views for a 1.09% CTR and a total of 50 from 3,570 views for a 1.40% cumulative CTR.
Skinematic Spotlight: The Lord of the Rings
Just to show you that there’s almost everything and anything on the Worldwide Web, here’s a site from Vail Reese called skinema.com… The Dermatology in the Cinema web site. This week Reese shines his light on LotR in quite a bit of detail. Let’s just say he finds a lot to write about. He will even cut on some extremely hot women, does this doctor have no scruples?
Being a former VJ must pay well
Even in Amsterdam, a castle like this can’t be cheap. So Adam Curry, one of the original MTV VJs, must have done well with his payola over the years (Adam, buddy, just kidding on the ayola-pay).
Blogger offline
Apparently Blogger got hacked early this morning and so the server has been offline ever since. For better or worse, Evan Williams is Des Moines today and so has been unable to successfully fix things as quickly as he might. Crackers, as he mentioned, have not respect for vacation time. This has hampered (actually prevented) me from updating today. Hope to see you with fresh content tomorrow.
In the meantime, feel free to peruse the new Xmas 01 photo gallery with about 20 shots taken during yesterday’s visits with friends.
Update (9:45 PST): Looks like Blogger is back.
Fixing this laptop
A kind stranger was considerate enough to respond to my previous lament about the instability of my Sony VAIO laptop with a few suggestions, the most basic being to look for updated BIOS or other drivers. Which of course I found straight out once I went to Sony’s support site. Why I, as a registered user, wasn’t informed of the availability of an update is beyond me. So now we’ll see what happens. If the problems continue I go to the next suggestion. Thanks for the kindness of the Internet stranger.
A new look at USS Clueless
Our inestimable captain at USS Clueless has cut over to Joel Spolsky’s CityDesk after reaching the limits of the bascially late, lamented GreyMatter software. Nice clean design, although I wish Steven could find a way to allow for variable width of the content column. He does have nice astronomical graphics and of course, the great writing continues.
A Santa Fe Xmas
garret has posted a few lovely photos from his Christmas Eve Canyon Road walk. If you jump over, don’t miss the e-car link cuz then you wouldn’t be a groovy kitty.
Micro-advertising experiment, day ten
Monday was the best day yet for the ad, getting ten clickthroughs out of 206 views for a 4.85% CTR and a total of 48 from 3,387 views for a 1.42% cumulative CTR. This is a fun experiment, definitely lots of entertainment for the $10 entry fee.
I saw Lord of the Rings today but I’m going to hold off on the review until I see it at least one more time. Unquestionably this is a movie worth seeing, with action, plot, scenic views, and even romance (more than in the book). That last comment is a big part of what’s holding me back from writing more tonight; I’ve almost finished re-reading the book and I think the differences from book to movie are bothering me more than they ought to (poor Tom Bombadill) since they only had three hours to fit everything in. For another weblogger’s opinion in the meantime, check out Jeff’s review.
Micro-advertising experiment, day nine
Sunday was not so bad for the ad, getting three clickthroughs out of 196 views for a 1.53% CTR and a total of 38 from 3,181 views for a 1.19% cumulative CTR. Other good things yesterday: Giants and Jets won (no romp but at the end of the season a W is a W) and there was the cool weirdness of Vanilla Sky.
Idiots to the left of us
I wasn’t going to blog Stephanie Salter’s SF Chronicle column titled W.W.J.D.? She means us to understand the title as What Would Jesus Do. Others have delivered responses as well but I, as is my wont lately, wrote her an email and here is the short and simple:
Ms. Salter,
You have got to be kidding with this column. It was a joke right? Turning the other cheek would be your answer to four downed airliners and a force of thousands that would be only too glad to add a lot more to that total?
I am surely against violence for violence’s sake but self-defense is quite a different story. And Stephanie, aren’t you glad that there were and are men and women willing to take up arms so that you can write such nonsense?
Bill Lazar
Tonight’s movie: Vanilla Sky
Talk about your out there, loopy movies and Vanilla Sky has to be added to the list. Think of What Dreams May Come and you might be in the ballpark, though this is more grounded in reality. Cool. Surreal. Confusing. Absolutely not your expected Cameron Crowe/Tom Cruise material. One might wonder why Cruise falls so hard and so quickly for Cruz instead of Diaz but there you are. The way Tom looks at Penelope you’d think he was really falling in love with her or something. Kurt Russell has a dream role and Jason Lee is a little too much of the smart ass for his role but if you get past the confusion you’ll see Crowe has done an above average job directing. Of course I haven’t seen Alejandro Amenábar’s Spanish original Obre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes) in which Cruz played the same role.
Micro-advertising experiment, day eight
Saturday was not so good for the ad, only three visitors yesterday (out of 267 views, 1.12% CTR!) for a total of 35 from 2,985 views for a 1.17% CTR. Less Woohoo, good thing I really liked the dinner and movie last night. Other good things yesterday: 49ers romped and Patriots beat the Dolphins (which is good for the Jets).
Last night’s movie: The Godfather
Holiday season often brings wonderful presents. I was fortunate this year to get a really nice one from a buddy, the Godfather DVD collection. To top it off, he also grilled steak and ribs for me last night before we watched The Godfather, the 1972 film that began the saga. Simply brilliant, the film has amazing acting, script, cinematography, and direction; this was recognized with three Academy Awards (Brando refused his for Best Actor) and seven aditional nominations.
Francis Ford Coppola collaborated with author Mario Puzo on the screenplay. There are many constructs throughout that provide a great foundation for the acting. The parallel actions during the opening wedding scene (the old man singing a dirty song in Italian as Caan take the bridesmaid upstair for a quick one as Duvall reads telegrams telling the Don his politicans are fucking him by not showing at his daughter’s wedding as Johnny Fontaine walks in and the women all want to fuck him), the parallels between Diane Keaton and Simonetta Stefanelli (Pacino’s two wives), and the parallel staging of the main assasinations (on Brando and by Pacino), to name just three.
Brando, Pacino, Duvall, and James Caan brought the characters to life. Especially Pacino, who renders an awesome transformation from sweet, untouched returning war hero through tragedy and harsh reality into a cold, ruthless Don. We noticed, in accord with Pacino’s character arc, that if you accept the rules of the Mafia world, the Corleone family thoughout the film only responds to the wrongs done them by others. And there are so many famous scenes, no wonder men are constantly quoting or referring to the film.
BillSaysThis 
