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Post # 273 Inventing phrases Next time someone seems a little too knowledgeable about Japan hit them with this: "If you did / said that in Japan you'd have to commit sudoku." And watch the fireworks. add comment to post #273 permalink Post # 272 A good disguise Super heroes have a long history of hiding their identity, usually will pretty full face masks. The other day I ran across this image of a retired comic "The Fighting Yank".  I am wondering why a darkening around the characters eyes is supposed to hide his identity when the complete rest of his face is clearly visible. I suppose the hat might make more of a shadow but at the end of the day picking this guy out of a line up would be a piece of cake, especially with the tight white shirt and strange riding pants. It is actually kind of hard to focus on that when he is in the process of hitting a man who is carrying a toddler in his arms, therefore most likely causing the man to drop the baby. In summation, the Fighting yank is not the man I want showing up when I am in need of assistance. Search Tags: comic, yank, punch, disguise add comment to post #272 permalink Eric:Yeah, well, I wouldn't let this fag anywhere near my children. This one either. Jesus Christ, how many nearly identical superheroes does your country need? Post # 271 Xperia Last week I started using the new xperia (x10 elsewhere) in another misguided attempt to increase my productivity utilizimg my now increasing train time. There is a steep learning curve , especially having the accompanying instruction book in Japanese. After this first week I seem to have a handle on the things I want to do but ran into one issue that has bothered me about computers for a very long time. There seems to be this strange philosophy that pretty much every service with a new device should be gracefully accounted for except a robust text editor. I can email and chat and connect to the internet with pretty much everything out of the box but the idea of allowing me to make a proper text document seems alien to the people who decides on what is in a software bundle. It is now an easy fix with several free options for computers but starting again for the phone burned deep inside me. With help from friends I have obviously found a solution. It just seemed odd this was virtually the last thing I got working on the phone considering it was my primary drive. The phone itself is awesome except for the lack of sensitvity of th "a" on the keyboard. Maybe it is too close to the edge. Maybe I need to file down my thumb. Seach Tags: phone xperia productivity hate documents add comment to post #271 permalink Peter:As I have been showing off my phone and talking about it I have noticed a large number of people have been testing me by smiling slyly and saying "but I want an iphone." I think they are expecting a big reaction and a lot of talk about the benefits of my superior phone. My actual answer is "Yeah, its good, and maybe easier to use." It's amazing how disappointed some people look. Post # 270 Really Today while looking through random internet I found a post that said "Fast Forward to 0:28 for..." the bit they were talking about. Please think about that for a moment. Please fast forward to the 30 second mark because obviously in this day and age this is an inordinate amount of time to wait for content. I have been reading about attention spans of teenagers, which is actually fine, until there is a computer around. I'm old. add comment to post #270 permalink Post # 269 How you say in English I am an avid reader, although in recent years I have had to shift my intake from novel form to snippets of internet garbage. Reading a novel now holds a particular sense of pleasure for me, but also has made it so that I pay particular attention to the elements of the text. I have had a realization, a point that has been emphasized by the fact that I have lived among non-native English speakers for a very long time. People who have learned English do not (read: never) use the phrase “How you say…” before using an idiom perfectly. “How they say in your country…” / “How your people say…” or any variation is a sign of poor writing because the author does not know how to indicate through written dialogue that the person speaking is not a natural English speaker. Certainly, as an English teacher, I understand the difficulty of idioms in a second language. I have been teaching idioms to students for years and have come to the conclusion that as a general rule, students should not use idiomatic language. This is because of the subtleties often involving culture that go along with an idiom that a non-native have missed out on. A very difficult skill would be to include minor errors of speech to indicate a second language speaker without making it cartoonish. I doubt I could do it well myself unless I was writing a Japanese person, a demographic I have been listening to daily for a decade. The other extreme would be to write in an accent, another style that I think indicates poor writing. add comment to post #269 permalink Post # 268 This is how I talk socially LOOSEWORLD x Waverly Films: Reggie Watts in F_CK SH_T STACK from LOOSEWORLD on Vimeo. add comment to post #268 permalink Post # 267 How not to demonstrate something “Okay, let’s say you’re in a bar and a guy tries to pick a fight with you. What do you do?” “I try to talk him out of it.” “I offer to buy the guy a beer. You can assume he’s been drinking and more alcohol is a very appealing offer to a drunk person. You can just say ‘We can fight, you might win, I might win, but one of us gets hurt. Or you can have a free beer.’” “So you diffuse the situation. I…” “I’m not done yet. Then you slip a roofie in that beer and when he gets a little out of it you walk him outside. Find a puddle and dump him face first into it and make sure he stays there for a couple of minutes. The you walk away with plausible deniability.” “What…” “What I’m trying to illustrate is that I’m much more thorough than you and that comes from preparation.” add comment to post #267 permalink Post # 266 Babies I have been accused on several different occasions of “not liking babies”. I believe there has been some misinterpretation of my personal preferences in total. You see, in reality, I don’t like people who scream a lot. Should any individual enter my dwelling and proceed to make loud noises of any sort for a prolonged period I would gently ask them to leave, then proceed to throttle them. Upon hearing this people often then resort to the argument “But babies can’t help it.” I do understand that an infants primary means of communication is through vociferousness. That understanding is what has led, thus far, to the staying of my hand and the dismissal of said child from my home. So I feel that this demonstration of patience in the face of behavior that frustrates me should lay this topic to rest. I like babies as much as I like anyone. I just prefer them when they are not screaming in my face. add comment to post #266 permalink Post # 265 Sneezing & Necrophilia My naturally scientific mind leads me to the interesting questions that often make up the content of award winning shows such as Mythbusters. The only problem is that if I tested my theories people would die or end up in jail. Case in point: Can F1 drivers sneeze. At first this was a question of someone wearing a helmet while travelling at speeds of approximately 300 km / hr. If you are going to talk about it, you might as well talk about it at the top speed. Should someone driving a car at this speed sneeze it seems like there would be dire consequences. At first I was thinking about a) closing your eyes for a slightly extended period and b) the obscuring of vision as a result of mucus on the inside of the visor. Point two, it was pointed out by a very astute student of mine, is moot because they wear fully covering headgear underneath their helmet, I believe its part of a fire suit to protect them in case of a burny crash, so while the sneeze may be messy, it would just lead to a wet upper lip and not obscure vision. Still, when you sneeze, you close your eyes. I don't know if anyone has measured how long, but I would be interested in the amount of distance travelled in this instance which could then be projected into the risk of going off track or hitting an obstacle. My second, and far worse example (apparently), involves some necrophilia. Please let me justify myself before you conclude that I am pro-necrophilia as I am positively on the fence on that issue. What I was initially wondering was if the aids virus can survive, and for how long, in a dead body. I was pretty sure it doesn't go dormant, but not being a doctor, I am not sure. After some discussion there seems to be some consensus that the aids virus would not survive in a corpse. I was then trying to figure out who this could benefit. I know that blood isn't collected from dead bodies, so obviously it isn't useful medically. Then I realized that necrophiliacs don't have to worry about aids. For a group with so many social concerns (should others find out) suddenly there is one less worry. add comment to post #265 permalink anon:Apparently HIV can last for 6 days in a corpse: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8465464.stm Name:It's not that hard to prevent your eyes closing when you sneeze. I can do it. It's about as difficult as learning how to wink or cross your eyes. Peter:Were you sneezing with your eyes open when you added to the wrong post? A couple of people have mentioned this post to me and I think they are missing the actual point. What I am interested in is mainly the distance traveled by an F-1 car in the time someones eyes would be closed IF they sneezed while driving as fast as they could. How likely it would be to cause a crash etc. I know people don't sneeze when they have any amount of adrenaline in them since when I do Judo my seasonal allergies completely disappear for the period of exertion. My introductory statement was actually intended to set a theme and a variety of conditions to be examined. If F1 drivers sneezed and it caused crashes either the sport would have been stopped or someone would have done something about before now. mr sneeze:You blink for about 300 milliseconds and F1 cars max speed would be of the order of 100 metres/second, so I guess that would be about 30 metres during the time your eyes are closed. The time spent while you are distracted by going to sneeze would be much greater though. Post # 264 The chart of knowledge  add comment to post #264 permalink Name:It's not that hard to prevent your eyes closing when you sneeze. I can do it. It's about as difficult as learning how to wink or cross your eyes. Post # 263 Dances with Smurfs I went to see Avatar, my first film in 3-D. My expectations were so low it was a lot of fun. Obviously I knew the story since I knew about the whole lifting the story from Dances with Wolves thing. One of my friends asked me what Dances with Wolves was about and I said: 'Its about a cowboy who fucks an Indian chick.' This apparently wasn't the kind of summary they were looking for. My summary of Avatar: 'Its about a space cowboy who fucks and alien chick.' add comment to post #263 permalink Peter:Apparently actually like my one sentence summary of movies using the f-word. If you would like a movie summarized, and I have seen it, please send the title and I will do my fucking utmost. Post # 262 Link Dump At&T, Apple, Google all I want is my text messaging for free. Smoking can be cool Teamwork Reading Rainbow theme song Actually fairly impressive I had a similar conversation once. Mine was shorter. Al Franken is awesome bullseye Hail Vectron add comment to post #262 permalink Peter:Rarely has a game been so much fun when you are actually not playing it. Sumo Tori is totally worth the download for the size, but be forewarned, you will most likely just sit and watch them stumble for hours. Post # 261 Sharing Every single person that works in my company is supposed to have a degree of some sort from some institution of higher learning as a prerequisite to getting a position of employment here. That should indicate that the people I work with are the results of the respective culmination of their countries highest achievements in academic ability. That is why on a regular basis at my office I am shocked and disturbed at the ineptitude of my co-workers when it comes to the most basic human interactions and common sense. The concept that seems to be especially difficult is one that should be learned early in human development. Most of my co-workers do not seem to understand the concept of “sharing”. There are two very separate instances where this has made itself apparent. The first is in a simple book sharing experiment that I began. Living in Japan, English books for pleasure are either expensive or hard to come by, often both. It makes sense, then to offer the books I have read to my immediate friends in the hopes that they would return the favor for me. With my trusted friends this system has performed admirably, so with the intent of expanding my marxist influence I began leaving books in a conspicuous place for any member of the staff to take. This has resulted in every book I have placed there (well more than 50 at this point) being removed with nothing being left in its place. The most memorable instance of this was with a new group of teachers who were in the process of training. I had, before my presentation, left 3 books in the box that was now delegated as the “share box” for books. At the end of our day I was sitting down to eat and watched as one member of the group walked over, picked up all three books and put them in his bag. “You're taking all three books?” “Yeah, I'll read them all.” “But not all at the same time?” With a tone of voice to suggest I was stupid. “No.” “So why don't you take one book and leave the others for someone else?” “Someone else will take the books and then I won't be able to get them.” “But you're not leaving anything to replace the books you're taking?” “No, I don't have any.” “But its still okay to take them all.” “Well...they're free.” “Of course you'll bring them back later for other people.” With a tone of voice to suggest I was stupid. “Of course.” That was over a year ago, the employee has since quit and the books were never seen again. The part that bothers me the most is the “Of course.” at the end. We all know this is the proper answer, the answer you are supposed to give, so it comes out so quickly as if it were so obvious but I know the books are never coming back because the kind of person who would return books wouldn't take everything available in the first place. There is no way to prove this until after it happens, then these people so many excuses that its painful to listen to and there is the invariable “I was just about to...” return the books, pay for the good, perform CPR, whatever needed to be done that wasn't. The part that bothers me is this is a full grown adult with a supposedly higher than average education. Yet I can see they don't get the problem, they don't understand why I am hassling them. So that system pretty much broke down. For me the end came when I placed my collection of Giant Robot magazines in the box, at least 30 issues, each imported at great cost, all of which were gone a few hours later with nothing left in their place. Obviously I didn't really expect to get the magazines back, but I know that 30 individuals didn't take the magazines, one person picked up the whole pile and walked off. What was most amusing was the fact that I actually got annoyed, despite basically knowing that this is exactly what was going to happen. I no longer share books in this way, I put things I consider garbage there and if I have anything good I ask my friends if they want it and if not it goes to the international center library. My second example is a little more conceptual, but perhaps more telling. Everyone wants their movies and media for free. I understand that since I live in Japan as well and sometimes things just don't come here. Several times I have had people ask me if there was a way they could download a torrent and block the only other function of a torrent client, seeding to other people. The conversation I had went something like this: “Is there any way I can download from a torrent site and block the uploading?” “Why would you want to do that?” “Won't it make my connection faster so I can download faster?” “Not really, but do you understand how filesharing works?” “Yeah...” (This means 'no' but they aren't willing to admit it) “If you don't share out it means other people can't get what you are downloading either, so it makes the whole system slower. Basically, if everyone did what you are talking about no one would get anything.” “Yeah, I get that, but is there a way I can download a torrent but block the upload?” “No, no you can't.” So sharing is a concept that seems to have been somewhat lost over time and with each generation of people who joins my company I rarely see improvements in the attitude. Certainly I haven't been seen actual generations, but I have seen new university graduates pretty much every year and over the last decade my view is that this particular trait is on the way out for the moment. Or, I might be getting older and just see everyone with youth and vigor as being selfish. add comment to post #261 permalink Michael V:Hey Peter, Of course, I would share my books. Yeah, of course. Post # 260 Super Powers Last night Matt came over and I had a short discussion with him about super heroes. I had recently completed the Wolverine game and honestly learned a lot about the character. I didn't know the claws were actually bones which had then been covered in adamantium. My question, then, was why weren't Wolverines teeth also covered in adamantium? Why doesn't he have a permanent grill? I know teeth aren't bones per se, but it would seem logical if the coating is going over all his bones it would include the teeth as well. In my write up I posit some similar questions. Then I started on my Theory of Supermans flight. Its gross, so people don't want to accept it, but I think its the kind of place only real logic would bring you to. search tags: wolverine superman claws comic character teeth claws flight add comment to post #260 permalink Post # 259 Better searching I noticed someone searching for American Ninja 4 and when I tested the results myself I got nothing. that is because the php search function is not particularily robust or easy to implement without a massive amount of code. Rather than write that code (or copy it from somewhere else) I have decided to add simple search tags at the end of each post which should assist in yielding better results. There are currently 250+ entries, I probably won't do them all but it will still take some time. Good hunting. search tags: peter is lazy search code php add comment to post #259 permalink Post # 258 Introduction to Judo My son is going to get his first does of Judo next Wednesday. He is too young to do it, but he is going to come and watch me fight. I am interested in what his reaction will be since the outcome of most Judo experiences is pretty violent. Either he is going to see me beat a guy or he is going to see me get beaten. There is the off chance that we fight to a draw, but the way I do things I tend to win big, or lose big, Everyone in the Judo club is eager for him to get a little older and join up, just because he's my son, but they don't seem to understand that I don't want to push him into any sport. I do hope he is active, but I really want him to choose his own thing. I would be really excited if he did something completely different from Judo, like ballet. People seem to think I am joking when I say this but I am really impressed by dancers and their physical ability, it would also be cool if he could get into a team sport, which my personality seems to be completely unsuited for. Should I survive (they have made me team captain again, against my will) I will post an update next week. search tags: judo sports son ballet add comment to post #258 permalink Pat Frm The Past:My son's only 3. Too young for here in Canada as well. I do want to sign him up for Judo at 5 though. Just to give him the experience. And because he'll likely be small, and smart. Knowing how to not get your ass handed too you on the school yard might also be helpful. If he flames out or seems disinterested, well, we'll move onto other things. Like gymnastics, which he's already taken lessons for and loves; swimming, which is the same as gymnastics; hockey, which he is currently obsessed with; or dance, which he is currently infatuated with as well. I hear you on the dance thing. Update:Surprisingly successful at the Judo tournament. Our team was kind of designed to be weak. We used a lot of our younger inexperienced players to give them a chance to experience higher level of tournament so winning the first round was a good sign. I won my first match with a hold down. It was funny because he was small and a good deal faster than me so I didn't want to make the fatal mistake of underestimating him. He was made the team captain for a reason. He went for tomoe nage, which never seems smart to me when my legs are a good deal longer than someone his. But, its a big showy throw and I think maybe thats how he wanted to win. The real problem is that I am not a showy fighter at all. In fact, you could say I am brutishly dull. When he went for the throw I blocked it and we went back to our line. He then went for the same throw again, I think, expecting the worst case scenario of me blocking again. I didn't, it is a big mistake to do the same thing twice in a row in a high level match. This time he went for the tomoe nage and I slipped through his defenses easily knowing where his body was going to be. The look on his face was pretty priceless as he obviously hadn't accounted on me being able to do this so quickly or easily. The hold down was a lock and that was an easy win after that. I even mugged to the kids from my club on the sideline which is a little out of character for me (in Judo). The second fight doesn't have much to describe. We went back and forth, very evenly matched, I got him to tumble about 20 seconds before time ran out so the ½ point was mine and so was the match. Oh, and my son, he didn't seem to notice the actual Judo at all, but he did notice the mats and wanted to get his ass out there and play on them. Post # 257 Putting more here The problem with writing for multiple blogs is that everything is pretty clearly delineated and so when I am writing I am often thinking about how to categorize what it is I am doing. Once things get a category they generally don't end up here. Obviously there is no need to re-post things I have made for other sites, but each week or so I think it might be easy for people if I collected the posts I made and put them here. Then rated them for quality. The new Halo ODST trailer got me almost as excited as the new Modern Warfare game coming out. I 1. want a movie and 2. am willing to buy the game on release instead of waiting for a price drop. Thats some good advertising. Even if you don't like games, you should watch the clips. Awesome. I had my feet eaten for HikanNinja and it turned out good. Also some various blog posts about a New Japanese TV series, Doraemons Birthday The same as my sons and a Blessing I might need for my xbox. search tags: games halo odst hikanninja xpatslive add comment to post #257 permalink Post # 256 Mask of the Ninja Casper Van Dien was Johnny Rico in Starship Troopers. Sure the movie didn't call for a lot of acting skills but he was perfect. I thought with that movie under his belt he would become fairly popular. There has been a lack of action stars and he fit that role fairly well. He could obviously do military and all-American without really acting. The next movie I saw him in was Dracula 3000 where he plays Captain Van Helsing (which isn't really fair since it was actually made the year before Starship Troopers) but it had Coolio in it and for some reason I think Coolio is something of a curse if you work with him. The next non-television film he was in was Starship Troopers 3, which was way better than Starship Troopers 2, so he at least dodged that bullet. (This is a relative comparison, Starship Troopers 3 is a questionable movie at best and I don't really recommend to anyone but the most hardcore of science fiction fans. They will enjoy Jolene Blalocks [vulcan chick in tight clothes from Star Trek Enterprise] lips throughout regardless of plot holes).  You may very well wonder why I am talking to such an extent about Science Fiction movies in a Ninjalicker Internet Movie Kung-Fu Internet Movie Database review. It's because those are more enjoyable films than the actual movie Mask of the Ninja which starred Casper Van Dien and I spent a majority of the film wondering what had happened to his career. I thought he had a career playing space marine guy set up for him for years to come and certainly all American action hero guy in lame but fun action movies but he never took off. I wondered (perhaps hoped) that he was off trying something new. Something new not being the train wreck that is Mask of the Ninja.  Do you remember the ninja movies that were popular in the mid 80's? Movies like Enter the Ninja, Revenge of the Ninja and Ninja Ninja Ninja? The creators of Mask of the Ninja sure do and they spend a good portion of the movie re-creating the look, feel and atmosphere of those movies. If you went back and watched one of those movie now you would get the feeling that they don't really stand the test of time. The plots are confused or poor, The inclusion of westerners seems tacked on to make the movie accessible. The fact that an inordinate amount of ninja's re-located to Los Angeles rarely made sense unless you were on the production team and knew you couldn't afford to go out of state to film. Well, even knowing those problems the makers of Mask of the Ninja forged ahead and made a near scene for scene re-make of a standard ninja movie from 20 years ago.  Please play this on a loop in the background the rest of the time you are reading this review. There were always a lot of things that bothered me about Ninja movies, once I was old enough to realize when things didn't make sense and Mask of the Ninja could be a summary of them. You could do this yourself and make it into some sort of party game, but make a short list of all the things you know to be true of the mythology of Ninja's.  They used stealth more than head on tactics. They tried not to reveal their true identities should they be seen. That kind of went with the stealth thing.  Their allegiances were mainly political and mercantile. They killed in as quick and efficient manner as possible. They avoided direct conflict. Now, using these basic rules (you can add your own if you want to include things like magic, but I think that depends on the construct of the movie) every time one is broken, you get your cocktail enema. You could try and make the argument that the world of the movie could include its own definition of a ninja but they will often give short contradictory definitions within the structure of the film.  They do this in Mask of the Ninja. They do everything in Mask of the Ninja, minus teaching white hero guy some secret move he later uses to dispatch evil ninja leader. They couldn't get to that because Casper spends a goodly amount of time on his back falling out of consciousness because he just got a beat down. This movie does have clans and a daughter who is supposed to be hot and a multitude of ninjas who do the one things that annoys me more than anything else in movies of the ninja flavor. They walk around in plain sight in ninja suits. They guard doors, they stand by things, they assault a police station and they do it all dressed as a cliché ninja. Thing is, even I know those suits were mainly designed for hiding at night, so wearing them outside in the daytime is not going to help you hide. In fact, They are so conspicuous I think they might even draw attention as people start to wonder if a ninja cosplay convention is in town. I can tell you this. The ninjas who felt like they had to wear their ninja suits at all times were the ones who died out first, not the ones who survived for the last 600 generations.  Pretty much every ninja in this movie probably would have died on their way to work. Another problem with Mask of the Ninja, and I can only say this because I have been listening to Japanese for the last 8 years, if you are going to have a guy in your movie speak Japanese, get a native Japanese speaker or one real good language coach, because this guy sounds like me trying to say something for the first time. If you are going to write a movie, when you write something that reads a nonsensical please go back and try again. In this clip I could make the argument that if what Casper is saying is true, it would have been more sensible to not make the chip in the first place. search tags: movie mask of the ninja casper van dien review add comment to post #256 permalink Post # 255 Sport Shirt Round-up I hadn't thought of doing this but when I think about it for a while I realized I do wear a lot of sports shirts and I do have fairly strong opinions on them and have ended up talking to people about these things so it made sense to summarize here: Nike: I figured I would get the bad ones out of the way first. Nike sports shirts tend to be heavy duty, last forever and get itchy as hell. The collar is always the culprit for me, but after a while the whole shirt doesn't feel that good. Adidas: These are my favorites, Adidas tends to do a lot of things right. If I could go back in time and buy the same shirts I had bought before I would buy dozens. They are light, the more you wash them the softer they get. The best shirts have the insignia stitched into the shirt in the same color. They did away with labels in the collar that always itch like hell. The more I wear these shirts the more I like them. I bought a new one recently and was a little dismayed that the material felt different, not a silky, but that might be because its new. UnderArmour: These are the most popular shirts with the other guys in my Judo club in Japan. I got one because just feeling the material made me think of some of my oldest adidas shirts. I bought the XL size and these shirts are designed to be skin tight. I didn't realize at first or I wouldn't have bought it to be honest. I'm not body conscious but I wouldn't wear this as anything but an undershirt or while wearing something else. Either that or I have to get some pec implants. Ignio: I think this is a really small Japanese company. I bought a hat from them and was really happy with the almost complete lack of logo. Their sport shirts are dirt cheap, so its hard to complain but they hit a really nice average for these sorts of things. Champion: I love Champion sweaters and track suits. Its too bad their sports shirts are some of the hottest I have worn. If you are looking to sweat these do the job well but I am usually looking for something to keep me cooler and something I won't notice while I work out. I notice these all the time when I am wearing them. I was going to post links to the company stores but they are all super flash heavy and my laptop doesn't like that so much. This post is filed under Judo becuase its the only reason I wear sports clothes. search tags: sports shirts nike adidas champion review add comment to post #255 permalink Pat frm the past:Hey, you're RSS feed is FUBAR. Just saying. Peter:Can you be more descriptive, because I get it fine. What reader do you use and what is wrong with it? It would help a lot if I got details, I might be able to fix it. Thanks. Pat from the Past:When I go to http://www.ninjalicker.com/NLrss.php in my browser (Firefox 3.5), I only get the last two article, and when I reload, they disapear and don't reapear until I restart the browser. I'm using the live bookmark feature of Firefox to load the feed. Pat from the Past:I think I figured out the issue. Desktop Customization / Skype & Google <-- this title. XML doesn't like special characters like ampersands, quotes, less than and greater than signs out in the open. It should be & (or & if the first attempt looks just like a normal ampersand) Pat from the past:I think you wrote the back end for this site yourself right? Try running the titles through htmlentities(); Peter:Thanks for looking into that. I wrote everything (codewise) on the site myself and while I had your comment in the back of my head I have been too busy to actually sit down and try and figure it out. I tried to make the RSS feed create itself dynamically out of the database, which seemed easy enough until I tried it. Overall its been working but feedback like this will make sure it works for more people more often. I grant you this pencil lead with +1 intelligence. Post # 254 Blood The Last Vampire Review Just posted my review of Blood The Last Vampire over at HikanNinja. For fans of the Ninjalicker Internet Kung Fu Movie Database all anime and Japanese related movie reviews end up there. search tags: movie review blood the last vampire add comment to post #254 permalink Post # 253 Desktop Customization, Skype and Google I think I have made a bunch of posts on productivity, each touting my latest effort to improve my personal productivity. I have to admit, while these have generally resulted in spurts of effort none of them have been sustainable. Basically I think it all comes down to self-discipline. Although it is possible to maximize your own efforts. Recently I did a little overhaul of my laptop since I have decided to use it more for typing (at times sitting in front of the 30 inch monitor makes it difficult to work on text) and I also removed it's ability to play flash animation. This means no youtube on this computer. While I can check my reader I cannot spend hours watching random videos from the internet. This has helped greatly with the realization I can just save these posts and then watch them at a later time when I have finished my work. I have noticed it is a lot easier to sustain an effort without this very time consuming distraction. The other bit of customization went to both computers, customizing the desktop. I really don't want too much style but I do want one big ass clock displaying all the time. That and the date. I don't know why, but it helps me organize myself better when I can keep track of time. Rainmeter and customize.org for the pc and conky for ubuntu and I had made the desktops I want making my work environment just a little more pleasant. Screenshots unavailable since for some reason my screenshot program doesn't do the embedded images. The cpu usage meter and whatnot just look cool. I have also begun using skype and google talk since my wife is still in Canada. For international calls it makes sense but I have found I have a lot of im conversations that go on a lot longer than they should as opposed to actually just speaking to the person. Especially when talking to co-workers about work. I would prefer to only use google talk since it integrates my google chat as well, but it only is available for windows at the moment (although the page says you can use it directly from gmail, but I need a mac friend to try to to see how well it works). Most of my friends seem to be mac users, go figure. I am hoping google gets on a linux version so I only have to have one chat program open on a computer at any time. search tags: computer skype google talk custom linux add comment to post #253 permalink Peter:Here are the much desired pictures of my desktops. I know you don't really care, but shut up.   Peter:Literally two weeks after I dump Pidgin for google talk exclusively they add support for the service. Sometimes I wonder if the world really is paying attention to my blog. previous posts |
