Burton Speaks

Leaf Blowers

2008-11-17T09:00:00.000-08:00

By an amazing coincidence, it was exactly a year ago today that I ranted about the noise generated by leaf blowers. Yet here I am today, at an unreasonably hour in the morning (at least by unemployed standards), listening to them use an internal combustion engine to turn a fan which then blows air around... and this is what they use to move leaves. (Not, for instance, a rake.)

I love technology. Technology has brought us incredible things: the Internet, special effects in movies that DON'T look terrible, and genetically delicious Life cereal. However, when the line forms for people who think that technology isn't the answer to everything, I'll be at the front. Is it more efficient to use a leaf blower than the rake? Perhaps for the person having to move the leaves. But the net effect of a leaf blower is absolutely negative: consider the noise pollution, the air pollution, the consumption of fossil fuels, the energy used in the construction of the thing, etc. All so someone can save a few minutes waving a magical wand of air movement instead of, for instance, a rake.

One day a committee will be formed for the express purpose of making the world a better place. I hope to be on this committee. I will encourage the use of rakes or, at least, quiet leaf blowers. Why? Because the quiet is good for us all.

Magical Blogger Mood Ring

2008-11-14T11:44:00.000-08:00

Mood Color: Gray

I've been looking for a job for so long now that I'm not sure what I would do if I had one. I've watched the economy collapse around me and have been forgotten or ignored by so many companies I couldn't begin to name them all. Being so useless and unwanted is really taking its toll. I'm rapidly running out of savings and hope.

'Tis the season?

2008-11-12T22:39:00.000-08:00

So it's November 12th, the day after Veteran's Day, and this isn't the first time I've seen a Christmas ad. With 42 days left until Christmas (11.5% of the year), the retailers are out in force, perhaps hoping that we can buy ourselves out of this recession that we're in.

Or maybe not.

I love this time of year for the eggnog, but I really detest the blatant "BUY BUY BUY" commercials. I'm all for gift-giving (and, honestly, gift-getting) but at least leave me with the illusion that the Christmas is about something more than spending my way into happiness.

Of course this won't happen. And every year the retail season will start a little earlier. It used to be Thanksgiving when the ads would come out in full force. Now, it's just after Halloween. At what point will the backlash occur? At what point will the advertising burnout happen? When will it just not matter anymore?

It never rains in Autzen Stadium

2008-11-08T23:57:00.000-08:00

I had the privilege today of watching the Oregon Ducks beat the Stanford Cardinals at Autzen Stadium in Eugene, something I've not done in years.

While I'm not a huge football fan, a game is exciting to go to now and again. The Ducks were beating Stanford by a narrow margin for most of the game, even with all the mistakes they made. Yet Stanford managed to take the lead after the Ducks made a particularly embarassing series of mistakes in the fourth quarter. Watching Oregon score with 6 seconds left in the game to re-take the lead was tremendously exciting, and made standing and sitting the heavy rain worth it.

One of the funny things about a Ducks game is that I'm pretty sure it's just about the biggest show in Oregon. With the capability of seating 54,000 spectators at a football game, I can't think of anything in Oregon that draws a larger crowd (other than The Decemberists.) Of course, that many people at a game means that post-game traffic was a nightmare - though the number of "I'm a Ducks fan" license plates that I saw bordered on humorously ridiculous.

I had a ton of fun. Thanks to my hiking buddy for taking me, and it was great to see everyone else there, too. Hopefully I'll get to go again someday!

Yet Another New Blog

2008-11-05T10:40:00.000-08:00

While I have historically used this site as a sounding board for my thoughts on politics, I've decided to create an entirely separate blog for those now. Starting yesterday, I'll be blogging about politics over at No Jack Kennedy.

My goal for this site, however, isn't just to be about my politics. I'd eventually love to have other people contributing to it as well, so that a mix of views will be represented. That's in the future, though, as I need to find people to write. (If interested, contact me!)

Dreary Days

2008-11-03T19:21:00.000-08:00

November has hit here in the Pacific Northwest, and our days of dreariness have started. When combined with the end of daylight savings time, the sun sets before 5:00 PM now and felt like it barely came up. A thick grey cloud hovered overhead today and just poured a constant rain on us that slowly drenched anything it came in contact with. In fact, today is so dreary I couldn't even find an appropriate photo to show the dreariness. Wow.

This always happens, of course. I'm surprised it took until November to kick in; usually it's October. Nonetheless, for some the day will begin and end while they're at work, and for those of us job-hunting in a recession, the day barely registers.

The silver lining, of course, is that a cold rain here means snow in the mountains, which mean snowshoeing, skiing in the winter and decent water levels in the summer. So there's that to look forward to, at least.

Trivia Night

2008-10-28T23:22:00.000-07:00

I'm down in Eugene right now, visiting my girlfriend. It's Tuesday night, so we went to Max's bar for trivia night (hosted by "E.Geek", who apparently isn't that big on the internet.) While the Oregon Commentator's opinion (page 13) wasn't exactly a glowing recommendation, I was impressed with the place. It was clean, there was free popcorn, and when I ordered a whiskey & coke (as usual) they gave me a glass of coke and a separate shot of whiskey so that I might combine them myself and be assured I'm getting my fair share of booze. Nice.

So I'm going to spoil it by saying that my team took 2nd place overall and 1st place in the second (of two) rounds. I'd like to claim that I led my team to that victory, but someone would likely show up and refute that. Nonetheless, I was instrumental at times. I also came up with our team name. Some affiliated teams were using themes from past presidential elections, so, for instance, there was an "I Like Ike" team. Well, we were the team "No Jack Kennedy". Yes, it's an awesome name.

Anyway, at this trivia night I proved that my knowledge of American history is shaky (did you know that Woodrow Wilson was governor of New Jersey before being president? I didn't!) and that my grasp of sports trivia is nonexistent (no, I can't name the top 5 teams in the BCS.) I am, however, useful at nameing classic rock tunes, M*A*S*H trivia, and other such useless knowledge.

I miss trivia night. I used to go out to O'Somebody's bar (not the real name, but I can't remember) in west Eugene way Back When I Was An Undergrad™. I wish I could find something like it locally; it's a ton of fun.

AAPL (or "What to do with $25 billion?")

2008-10-21T20:50:00.000-07:00

As a bit of an Apple fan, I knew they were set to release their quarterly results in a conference call today. While the news was (as usual) exceptionally good, what I found interesting was the fact that Apple has about $25 billion dollars in cash laying around*.

So what does this mean?

Well, first off, it seems that Apple has a pretty sizable "rainy day" fund set aside. That's good. Secondly, however, it means that they could have a lot of fun.

Today, they could:

Purchase GM, Ford, and Chrysler LLC and still have about $12 billion left over.

Pay for a couple months of the war in Iraq.

Buy 1/28th of the latest federal bailout.

Buy each of the 15.9 million college students in the U.S. a new MacBook (and have money left over, assuming they get the education discount on the purchase.)

Finally, in a cruel twist of fate, they could simply purchase Dell and, if nothing else, shut it down.+

Of course, this is all well and good, but Bill Gates could still come up with more cash if he needed to...

*A look at the financial statements indicates that this is really cash, cash equivalents, accounts receivable, and short term investments. In other words, extremely current assets.
+ Let it be known that I noticed that they had more cash laying around than Dell's market capitalization. Once I was looking at Dell's page, however, I saw the link at Mac Daily News which outlined my thinking better than I could do it myself.

Dearly Departed

2008-10-20T09:16:00.000-07:00

My girlfriend and I went to LiveWire at the Aladdin Theater on Saturday night which was, as usual, incredibly interesting and funny. Guests Congressman Earl Blumenauer and Berkeley Breathed were both fascinating to listen to, but what really stuck with me was the music.

During the first recording, the music was performed by two artists who had each recorded a song on the Dearly Departed album. As a fundraiser for maintenance on the Lone Fir Cemetery in Southeast Portland, a bunch of artists picked a person in the cemetery and told their story. There's the story of Sam Simpson, Oregon's first poet laureate, there's the story of Dr. Hawthorne, cofounder of Oregon's first mental hospital and a man who paid for the graves of many of his patients. And there's the story of Charity Lamb, who decided to end her abusive marriage with an axe (and who ended up as a patient of Dr. Hawthorne.)

The music on this album is universally excellent. The tunes are mournful yet interesting, the songs sad yet romantic. The memorialized dead have fascinating stories. There's the drunk who froze to death outside when he got locked out of his home, or the two friends who travelled to Oregon and ended up dying of pneumonia. What you don't hear a lot of are songs about the boring folks. There's no "here lies John, who died an uninteresting death after an even less interesting life." That would be a short song, I suppose.

In any event, the CD was fantastic. Yes, we purchased a copy (even though it's not technically for sale yet) but for my reader(s) out there, I highly recommend getting a copy. It's morbidly fascinating and you're supporting a good cause.

Jay Leno on Helmets

2008-10-17T02:03:00.000-07:00

As a motorcycle safety instructor I'm on a mailing list where we occasionally share these delightful little Public Safety Announcements. Today's video is of Jay Leno and a man from Arai Helmets

The major topic of conversation is how a helmet should fit. I'll be honest; my first motorcycle helmet was a size too large. It was comfortable in the store, but eventually "broke in" and got all wobbly on my head when I'd ride. My next (and current) helmet was much better; it was very tight at first, but now has loosened up to the point that it doesn't move around - but doesn't constrict the blood-flow to my head.

At any rate, I highly recommend watching this video. If nothing else, there's an awesome crash scene in there!

Thank you, Jay Leno!

Dude... Ballmer, WTF?

2008-10-15T15:15:00.000-07:00

So in the midst of Apple's announcement of their awesome new laptops, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer spent some time talking to the press. As was pointed out on Ars Technica, Microsoft's big guy spent some time talking to PC Magazine.

Now there's many pages to the interview and, while some of it is quite interesting, everyone once in a while Ballmer says somethings that makes you stop and say, "Wait, did he REALLY just say that?" Fortunately for us it's in print, so we can verify it.

Quote number one from the interview:

You know, anyway—can you find the applications you want on the Mac? Well, you don't really get full Microsoft Office.

Did Ballmer just say, "Macs are inferior because, among other reasons, you can't get a full version of Office?" Does he know Microsoft MAKES Office? And that, if you can't get a full version, it's likely his own fault?

Without casting too many aspersions upon the Mac BU, it's pretty obvious that Microsoft only makes a version of Office for the Mac to avoid anti-trust lawsuits, but doesn't actually make it good because they make more money if they sell Windows + Office for the PC.

Another great line?

We're going to talk about why—look, PCs are better than Macs. That is not something that can be debated. 32 out of every 33 times, somebody buys a PC instead of a Mac. I'm not saying that there are not some things that people like about Macs, apparently there are. But have you ever seen a cheap Mac? No.

I mean, without going into the definition of cheap or checking his numbers, this argument is just plain stupid. Seriously, volume does not in any way denote quality. I'm pretty sure Chevrolet sells more Cobalts than Mercedes-Benz sells C300s. Will anyone debate that the Mercedes is a better car? That it's built better, more pleasant to drive, and will last longer? No, but the Chevrolet is cheaper, so they sell lots. Would you be proud?

Ballmer, dude... just calm down there. You're driving me crazy.

Disingenuity

2008-10-10T10:22:00.000-07:00

While I'm looking for a job I've been trying to stay away from politics in my blog. It's difficult (maddeningly so), but thus far I've been reasonably successful.

I am endlessly amused today, however, by President Bush's comments to the nation in a televised address. He said:

"Here's what the American people need to know: The U.S. government is acting, and we will continue to act, to resolve this crisis and return stability to our markets."

What has had me giggling is that, for a party full of politicians who claim to idolize Ronald Reagan, they seem to forget all too quickly that the man once said:

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'

Perhaps I'm just skeptical because, ever since the $700 billion dollar bailout was announced last Saturday, the Dow Jones has dropped
over 21%. That's impressive.

Inauspicious Beginning

2008-10-09T08:16:00.000-07:00

So my day today has thus far started with this:

Yes, folks, what you're looking at is another flat tire. That's two in the space of a year! Unfortunately, I'm in Eugene right now and one of the lugnuts seems to be cross-threaded, which means I can't get it off. I called Les Schwab and they're sending someone out (for a minimum of $45) to help. Had I been able to get the lugnut off this would have been 15 minutes of inconvenience. Now it's about 2 hours of pain.

Peggle Deluxe

2008-10-06T00:46:00.000-07:00

I was playing around with Peggle Deluxe, the addictingly fun puzzle game from PopCap Games. I found out they made a version for the Mac, and I'm now happy.

This game is tons of fun. I mean, you're supposed to bounce a ball and hit certain "pins" on the screen. That part's fun enough, I suppose, but it goes from good to great when you finish a level. As the ball goes in for the last hit, it zooms in, and you hit it! FLASHING LIGHTS! BEETHOVEN'S ODE TO JOY! RAINBOWS! FIREWORKS! The celebration never gets old.

The game is frighteningly fun and I highly recommend that anyone interested grab a copy (though Peggle Extreme was available free from Valve at some point, or bundled... I don't remember.) In any case, try it, you won't be disappointed.

And did I mention there are Unicorns?

Lifestreaming

2008-10-04T02:52:00.001-07:00

I've been playing around with Sweetcron, a self-hosted lifestreaming portal. I've decided to use www.burtonsimmons.com as the entry page.

Lifestreaming is an interesting idea. I "play" online in a variety of places, from blogs (such as this one) to microblogs (such as twitter) to social networking websites (such as facebook). I'm using Sweetcron as an aggregator, collecting all (well, currently most) of my online activities in one easy-to-read place.

So check it out. Keep in mind that it's still a work in progress - both what you see and the engine that powers all of it. Let me know what you think!

Security Questions

2008-09-29T12:33:00.000-07:00

So I'm trying to get this online banking thing working and it's asking me to pick from a list of security questions. The only problem? I'm not sure I could consistently answer these!

Them: Who is your favorite actor?
Me: Hmm... good question. Who is my favorite actor?

Them: What is your favorite food?
Me: I'm getting over a stomach bug, I can't even remember what food tastes like right now.

Them: What hospital were you born in?
Me: I wasn't born in a hospital.

Them: What is your dad's middle name?
Me: I'm not sure I can consistently spell it correctly. I couldn't even spell *my* middle name correctly until I was 15! (Darn those extra/missing letters on names rarely used!)

Do you see the problem here? It's quite the conundrum...

Of money, politics, and debt (a timeline)

2008-09-25T23:20:00.000-07:00

So with today's FDIC-brokered takeover of Washington Mutual by JPMorgan Chase, 119 years of Washington Mutual history ends. But more than that happened, as far as I can tell.

First off, I think that - at this point - the bank failures are behind us. Of course, I also predicted $80/barrel oil (or lower) before next July, so my record isn't yet proven. (I still have my fingers crossed, though.)

Still, I've been working to wrap my brain about the causes of this crisis and the ripple effects. Here is my own simplification (hopefully correct):

Late 1990s: With Y2K looming and e-commerce on the rise, massive spending in the tech sector creates a boom of gigantic proportions.

2000: As Y2K passes with relatively few events and no apocalypse, companies start cutting back on infrastructure spending, triggering a crash in the previously red-hot tech sector.

2001: As the economy melts down due to the tech crash, the Fed starts to lower interest rates in an attempt to boost spending. Then some jerks fly planes into a couple buildings, and the economy goes from bad to worse.

2002-2005: With low interest rates and, I believe, less stringent rules on borrowing, money starts to flow. People in the margin who couldn't afford to buy a house now can, which increases demand on housing, which raises prices. Investors looking for a "safe bet" start putting their money into the housing market, heating up prices even further in certain areas.

Investment banks also create a security backed by mortgage assets, which are rated highly (because of the "prices will always go up" assumption.) Certain financial institutions ~~invest~~bet heavily on these securities, and, since money's easy to

2005-2007: The Fed starts raising interest rates in an attempt to moderate the economy. Investors stop putting money into homes, which lowers demand (and prices).

2006-2007: People who started taking out interest-only start having that interest-only portion run out, only to find that demand has dropped considerably with rising interest rates, prices have started to stabilize, and the promise that prices would always rise starts to look suspiciously false. Loan defaults and foreclosures start to rise. Banking institutions, realizing this, start to try to get rid of the mortgage-backed securities that are rapidly losing value.

2007-Present: Investment banks start to have asset issues and, ultimately, many start to fail as their highly leveraged loans and investments come due and they can't muster the liquidity needed. Then, as the investment banks start to fail, the normal banks - many of whom loaned the money for the investments - start to see their assets drop in value as they're not getting the money back that they loaned out.

So here's where we currently stand: Credit is an issue; no one really wants to loan money right now. That makes investment (of any kind) difficult, which slows down spending. At a corporate level, spending drops, income drops, and people start to lose their jobs.

But people are also starting to lose their homes. Some realize that it's easier to just walk away from a home and let it get foreclosed on than trying to save it and pay for something that shouldn't have bought to begin with. This leaves empty, bank-owned homes with no one looking after them, which is leading to an increase in crime and further strains law enforcement resources.

How do we solve this? I don't really have an answer to that right now. I'm not sure a $700 billion dollar bailout is the answer, but we'll see. (It sure is a really big number.)

Anyway, that's my understanding of how we got here. Any comments? Corrections?

Of Pirates and Holidays

2008-09-19T01:52:00.002-07:00

Once again, it's that time of year: National Talk Like a Pirate Day. As I've noted before, today is the day we can embrace our inner pirates and express ourselves.

In honor of today's event, here are a few more Burton Original™ ~~bad~~ terrible pirate jokes:

Q: What does a pirate to poison his enemies with?
A: AAAAARsenic.

Q: Where does a pirate get his Beef 'n Chedder sandwiches?
A: AAAAARby's.

Q: What does a pirate use to transport his booty from his ship to his hiding place?
A: An AAAAARmored car.

Q: What do you call a deal between pirates?
A: An AAAAARangement.

So listen, me hearties: be speakin' up, and be speakin' loud. Anyone be givin ye trouble and ye should make 'em walk the plank. And don't be tellin' no-one that you heard these jokes here. It might ruin me fine reputation.

Seriously.

Headline of the Week

2008-09-19T01:52:00.001-07:00

My favorite headline this week comes from Autoweek.com: GM's Excitement Division is getting a Chevy Aveo.

As a major fan of irony, this headline just makes me giggle. I mean, we're talking about a car that routinely makes lists of "worst cars made" and is frequently lambasted for it's lack of acceleration, handling, build quality, or... (wait for it...) excitement.

It depresses me (as news from GM often does) that - in the same week that they unveil the Volt (which I swear isn't going to go as far and is going to cost more than they originally promised) - GM chooses to also announce the G3, Pontiac's new Aveo. I just want to speak to the person who thought this would be a good idea. I want to sit down over a beer with the person who said, "Hey guys, let's do this... it'll be brilliant!" and just ask him or her, "WTF?" Are the potential profits from this worth diluting what's left of the Pontiac brand?

However, in my quest to one day have a smaller car I'm not saying I'd never consider it... just that it's way, way low on my list, mainly for the aforementioned reasons of absolute lack of excitement, build quality, finish, etc and that almost anything else would be better.

Oktoberfest

2008-09-16T08:52:00.000-07:00

That time of year has arrived again! It's late September, so it is, of course, time for the annual Mt. Angel Oktoberfest. This year I traveled there with some friends (opting to definitely not be the driver.)

Ah, Oktoberfest. The largest collection of college-aged party-goes, bratwurst, and lederhosen to be found on the West Coast. It's a thing of beauty, with the beergarden's full of polka, accordion players wandering the streets, and little bars full to capacity with no cover charge!

Our first stop at Oktoberfest was the Mt. Angel Sausage Company, home to some amazingly good bratwurst. The sausage was worth the wait and the effort to sift through the throngs of beer-filled revelers. After stuffing myself to the gills, I then headed indoors to enjoy some beer and conversation. Mildly inebriated, I then wandered down to Frank-N-Stien's pub, just opposite the glockenspiel (which had played it's last note for the day before I got there.) The evening was filled with fun and friends - and I even ran into other people I knew!

Finally, on my way out, I also had the opportunity to try - for the first time in my life - a fried twinkie. Now I only ate half of this delicacy, but I assure you it was the closest thing to sweet donut-y goodness I'd had in a long time. So delicious! So terrible for me!

Oktoberfest: definitely fun, and I'll definitely be going yet again.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

2008-09-09T13:14:00.000-07:00

Let me start this post by saying, "It's not as bad as everyone's said it is."

However, it's not that great, either.

Last night, during an exciting adventure I call "defrosting my refrigerator", I had some free time on my hands. Firing up Hulu.com, I happened to be browsing TV shows and noticed that the pilot episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles was set to expire in about two hours.

Impulsively seizing the moment (as I am occasionally wont to do) I ended up watching the first three episodes. Now the show won't win any awards - at least, not from any establishment I'd respect afterwards - but it did manage to entertain me. The story's familiar enough - it takes place after the events of Terminator 2 (and, irritatingly enough, on a "separate timeline" from Terminator 3 and the upcoming film) - but the characters are alarmingly thin. I mean, really thin.

The main players thus far:

Sarah Connor, who manages to monotonously brood and worry about saving her son so he can "save the future",

John Connor, who manages to be your standard dumbass teenager with no survival instinct whatsoever, and

Cameron Phillips, played by the infinitely cool Summer Glau, a Terminator sent back from the future to help John survive. In terms of depth of personality, I do believe they just picked the action scenes of her character in Serenity kicking everyone's ass and designed this character around that.

And yet, I'm still entertained (and not just because of my crazy nerd-crush on Summer Glau.) Apparently, our world is infested by time-traveling people from the future trying to sabotage the past and unstoppable killing machines (whose existence the government refuses to believe in) hell-bent on trying to kill them.

So there you have it. It's interesting enough that I don't want to stab myself while watching it, so I'll probably try to catch a few more episodes before they disappear.

Home Theaters

2008-09-07T17:18:00.000-07:00

The context for this post: I spent three hours today (for a total of five altogether) hooking up my mother's TV, DVD player, amplifier, VCR, and cable. With that in mind...

Why don't they make things easy? You know what I want as a consumer? I want things to be simple, yet flexible. I want to make the decisions and yet have everything just work together. I want to not have five different remote controls and have to press six buttons to go from watching TV to watching a DVD. Is it that difficult?

I think part of the problem is one of control. The content providers (cable, dish, etc.) want to have control. They want to be able to charge you more for watching more than one television in your home, and that (according to them) requires them to put a device there, which needs its own remote. Then everyone assumes that they'll connect on their own to whatever TV/projector you have, which adds remotes. What if you have an amplifier/receiver? You know that'll have its own remote. See where I'm going with this? Everyone has partial control and each device needs its own remote.

My solution? Have everything connect into one device, have that device upsample to the highest possible rate, and feed that video into the screen and the audio into an amplifier. In fact, have devices that will check to see what signal they're getting and play whatever they receive in the highest quality way possible.

This would mean that life would be simple and less cluttered for the consumer... but does anybody care?

Google Chrome

2008-09-04T08:21:00.001-07:00

It was a case of good news/bad news:

Good news: The story came out that Google Chrome was released. A web browser built by Google? Sign me up!

Bad news: It's being released while still in beta. I've been using Gmail for three years, and it's still in beta, too. (Note: the article I just linked to is almost a year and a half old.) A finished product may or may not ever be in the future.

Good news: There's a really nifty comic-book introduction to the design and features of Google Chrome. Extremely awesome!

Bad news: I went to the web page, and, like everything else in this world, Google Chrome is Windows-only. My smile faded quickly.

Good news: Ars Technica pointed out that one of the developers behind Google Chrome is that the founder and one of the lead developers for the Camino browser, my personal Mac browser-of-choice. He has proclaimed his intention to make a Mac-native awesome-tacular version of Chrome.

Bad news: While the plans for the next version of Camino are still intact, the future for it has gotten a lot murkier with the lead developer switching to working on Chrome.

So, while I'm looking forward to maybe one day trying out Google Chrome on my Mac, it's a mixed blessing. Resources are leaving an already-awesome piece of software (one that I use and abuse daily) and headed towards something that I can't even use yet made by a company that has a bunch of cool products that they may or may not ever finish. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Movie Review: Hancock

2008-09-01T16:27:00.000-07:00

I had the chance to see Hancock last night at the Northern Lights. The movie is about a "super"-hero named Hancock (played by Will Smith) who drunkenly fights crime in Los Angeles - just barely being less trouble than he's worth (I can identify with that.)

After he saves the life of a PR man named Ray (played by Jason Bateman), he's invited over for dinner with Ray's family. Ray's wife Mary (played by Charlize Theron) and an adorable kid seem to provide an appropriate mix of reactions (fear, adoration, etc) for the hero as Ray - believing in the good in everyone - decides to help improve Hancock (and Hancock's image.)

It's hard to describe the plot beyond that because there are really two parts to the film. There's the first half (the half that appears in the trailers) which shows the action/comedy portion of Hancock as the titular character fights his inner demons and finds out who he is (amnesia has caused him to forget much of his past) and then there's the surprising second half of the film, which is much more serious, much more hardcore, and much more interesting.

So without spoiling the surprise for anyone who hasn't seen it, I'm going to say that I really enjoyed the movie. It wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but I actually like that in a film. I like being caught by surprise, and I like it when a movie offers more than initially advertised.

Final word on Hancock? See it in the second-run theaters while you still can!

Updates, Updating, and Updated

2008-08-28T16:14:00.001-07:00

A few site changes:

First, I added a Twitter feed over on the right hand side, mainly so that there will be more frequent updates. How fun.

Secondly, I'm probably going to be changing the layout soon. I like the visual look of this one, which renders nicely at a decent resolution in Safari and Firefox/Camino, but it looks like poo when rendered for the IE folks. Also, the third column disappears when the browser window is too narrow.

Finally, I may go back to having Blogger host parts of this website, to increase reliability (ha, ha) and decrease the (embarrassingly small) load on the server. Okay, bad reasons, but whatever. It'll be a project because I have a lot of images that will break when I do it.