Month: January 2009

Book Works

Writing a book is fun. It took me a long time to get to a point in my life where I just knew what I wanted to write about.

I’ve had ideas over time. I usually always ended up finding that “somebody else” stole my idea. Of course, they didn’t steal my idea. They just acted on it before I did.

There is also the “if that idiot can write a book so can I” factor as well.

Before the following events occurred, I expected them to occur.

1. September 11th, 2001 – This is not a case of hindsight. Terrorists tried to bring down the twin towers before and failed. The buildings were clearly meaningful and iconic to Al-Queda and it was only a matter of time before they would succeed. They clearly succeeded on September 11th.

2. The U.S. Invasion of Iraq was primarily news network driven. Before President Bush even thought about it or had been advised about it, MSNBC was playing out scenarios on it’s news broadcasts almost on a daily basis. To anyone with ears, you KNEW that after Afghanistan, Iraq was going to be next and you KNEW because television news led the charge.

3. Hillary Clinton’s Presidential run was also news network driven and perpetuated before our very eyes by news anchors who truly thought of it first. It wasn’t casually mentioned. It was mentioned almost every single day for month after month on the major news networks well clear of Hillary even thinking about running.

4. Barack Hussein Obama. If you watched television news at all and have even an inkling of “foreshadowing” hidden within you, the staging of Obama’s run for the Whitehouse happened well clear of his campaign. By the way the news anchors of the day were talking, Barack Hussein Obama was going to run for President whether he liked it or not. At the time, the Democratic party needed a “front man” and they were desperate.

5. If Apple, Inc. is in bed with Barack Obama, how come the built in spell checker keeps telling me that I’m spelling his name wrong?

6. Why can meteorologists fail so miserably to predict the day to day whether patterns but are convinced that they “know” that man made Global Warming exists?

If any of these things make you go “huh” then perhaps it’s a great time to write a book about it.

BSG: Weekly Breakdown

Please move on folks. Nothing to see here.

The seeds have been sown for something awful to happen as far as some kind of rebellion within the fleet starring Felix and the VP.

President R. is still not worth much and totally mental. The end of this week’s episode finds her in bed with Adama. Yeah. Sure. Whatever.

I expected that the last few shows would be “edge of your seat” type stuff. The last two shows were dull and boring.

I’ve never seen such a great idea be completely wasted.

When this series started, it was a complete thrill ride even though I had to cope with a complete re-write of the story and characters. I was willing to forgive that as long as the story came out good.

Sometimes I feel like the writers believe that we’ll just like anything they put out because it’s Battlestar Galactica after all.

Well, we don’t.

Filed Under: WTF?

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This is truly a sad story. In December, this girl was feeling ill. By the end of January, she has no hands, no feet, and she is dead.

From the BBC…

The hospital in Brazil’s Espirito Santo state said she died from complications related to a generalised infection.

Mariana Bridi was said to have first sought medical help in December when she felt unwell. It was reported that medical staff initially thought she had kidney stones, before she was later diagnosed with a urinary infection, caused by a rare type of bacteria.

My heart goes out to her family.

Battlestar Galactica: A Fatal Beginning

For anyone who cares and is paying attention, this is the last few episodes of Sci-Fi’s Battlestar Galactica series. The original story has been raped so badly that it’s almost unrecognizable so perhaps it is fitting to just stop making any more episodes.

I’m not saying that this series has been bad. It really has been a wild ride. It’s like you started riding the ferris wheel and end up getting off of the tilta whirl.

It wasn’t what you expected. It wasn’t bad. It just wasn’t the bill of goods you were expecting. The original Battlestar Galactica storyline was amazingly simple and I suppose that’s why it worked so well. This version seems like something that they created just because they got the money and could. I think Richard Hatch should have been given the chance. I’m just saying.

The first episode of the last half of the season for Battlestar Galactica has claimed it’s first victim.

An estranged husband and wife decide to go out together and share stories and a drink or two. They kiss each other goodnight and the wife appears as though she’s floating on air with a big smile on her face.

She stands at her locker while removing her jewelry and then…

…shoots herself in the head.

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Goodbye Dee.

Starbuck has to be a Cylon. She can’t be but she has to be?

Tigh’s dead wife is the 5th? Yeah. Sure. Whatever.

Khan Dies: RIP

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from the LA Times…

Ricardo Montalban, the suave leading man who was one of the first Mexican-born actors to make it big in Hollywood and who was best known for his role as Mr. Roarke on ABC’s “Fantasy Island,” has died. He was 88.

Montalban died Wednesday morning at his Los Angeles home of complications related to old age, said his son-in-law, Gilbert Smith.

Windows 7 Beta Update

I was able to figure out what my internet connectivity problem was by looking at something that someone else had done.

He was using the exact same program (Sun’s VirtualBox) but he had his ethernet setting on something other than the default. It caught my attention. I changed my setting to his and viola!

I have been playing with it for a day now and so far I like what I see.

I’ll give a more thorough report when I can.

A Quick Windows 7 Preview

Of course, I’m happy to be Beta Testing for Microsoft again. I completely sidestepped Vista because I knew it had problems. Enter Microsoft Windows 7 Beta. Installation was rather slow but overall, I like the way it looks and feels.

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The login screen is simple. Simple is always good. The fact that Windows 7 makes you establish a user account is even better.

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Again. The desktop design and layout is simple.

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For me, this is where it all falls apart. I have NO internet connectivity and the various control panels and setup screens don’t appear to be easy to figure out. It’s much like XP when XP doesn’t work.

I can’t blame this on Microsoft. I’m running this on my MacBook Pro which, in turn, is running Sun’s Virtual Box. I plan on testing the OS on a PC box real soon.

On the surface, it looks pretty good. As time rolls on, I’ll provide more details on how to fix the Sun problems as well as testing Microsoft Windows 7 the way I always like to. Until it breaks. 🙂

The Mind of David Weber

There IS another Safehold novel written and on it’s way for release in July 2009. If you have an Audible.com membership, may I suggest looking up David Weber?

You simply will not be disappointed.

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I took the time to read up on some of the things he’s working on and it simply staggers the mind.

I am planning on taking some time to find more good audio stuff from David Weber. The way his mind works is amazing. The way he can translate those ideas to the printed page is even more amazing.

Meanwhile in New Hampshire…

…the whole entire state’s population was involved in a 50 car pile up.

That’s right. There’s only about 50 people living in New Hampshire. Everybody knows it. 🙂

from CNN…

(CNN) — More than 50 vehicles — including a bus carrying Boy Scouts — collided in a massive pileup on a snow-swept New Hampshire interstate Sunday, closing the highway in one direction, authorities and witnesses said.

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USS George H.W. Bush Commissioned

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Not lost on any other news outlet (in my newsreader anyway) is the following BIG event happening today. Neither Google nor Time nor Washington Times nor New York Times or any other major news outlet had anything to say about this at all.

NORFOLK, Va. — President George W. Bush landed Saturday on the USS George H.W. Bush, a new aircraft carrier named after his father — the ultimate honor for a decorated Navy pilot from World War II.

I am ex-Navy so I guess I think this is a big deal.

Thanks to FoxNews for making this the big deal it should be.