the world of the welch
I removed the nifty twitter feed on the sidebar because it seriously killed load time and twitterific is in various states of stupid on the three machines it installed.
I don’t love you any more twitter. Goodbye you slow, slow, slow waste of time.
Technorati Tags: puppy
It is dead again. New hard drive went belly up. Days now. No easy solution. A corrupt header. No fix, no repair. Tech Tools Sucks.
Managed to copy part of my user folder over last night. I hadn’t had a good back up in weeks. Inbox is full, can’t send emails out now. Roadrunner sucks.
Reinstall OS X tonight. I hate doing what I do at work when I am at home. I have decided I am going to whore myself out for a new machine. Some how.
I wish hitting it with a hammer would hurt it. If you read the police blotter of crazy man arrested while throwing a computer at passing cars some where off of Mills, that is me.
I just picked up this movie with a gift certificate from my birthday. Mentioned on Twit by Dvorak. While not as completely solid as “Office Space – Special Edition with Flair (Widescreen Edition)” (20th Century Fox) this Mike Judge affair is still a funny look at a future society where the dumb bred a bit better than the smart.Funny thing is I have smart friends turning out like the parodied couple in the beginning that find every reason to avoid having children till their relationship sucks and they break up. Water is replaced by a Gatorade like drink which the company that makes it replaces the FDA. Ow My Balls is the top show and just about every other soft spot of pop culture is skewered.
I laughed out loud several times but it doesn’t live up to its heritage. The best jokes were the subtle references and definitely less quotable than Office Space. This got dumped by Fox and should have had a better showing. But it is a great satire and worthy of at least dropping into your Netflix queue.
Technorati Tags: idiocracy, mike judge, office space, movie, review
For the past thirty days or so I have experienced hosting hell on every website I touch. I am beginning to wonder if I have the technological equivalent of a a black hole aura when it comes to web junk. It started at school with our server then moved to the Colonialtown hosting (minor), The Sentinel blog (not my fault but still maybe karmic) and then my handy collection of sites (black out baby). Like clockwork and on a weekly basis disaster struck. Let me give you a few details.
School
Just two days before a scheduled change over to a new, updated, faster, niftier server the ancient machine holding the school’s site went belly up. It had perfect timing. Dead within minutes of the bell ringing for the first class of the day the computer teachers, who all host classes pages on the server, lit up the phone. Dammit. Drive not recognized. Open the case and what do I hear, the HD clicks of death. No problemo, we have backups. A handy NAS has been pulling backups. I make a call to the Server Guru for the county. Help! [I needed help because of my failed attempt earlier in the month. Damned Frontpage extensions, I hate them. Touchy little bastards and I want to dump them.] Server Guru says he can come tomorrow. Okay. In the mean time we tried freezing the drive. (didn’t work)
Well, Guru arrives and we begin. Start with checking the condition of the backups. No backups. %$%&%%^$%^&*&^^&*$@##$%@@^&!!!!! Yes, no backups. Software had gone screwy and was actually lying to us. It was telling us that there was a backup, that it was 14.2 GB big. But it was a big empty balloon. %^^%$&^%%^&#%&^T^&*!!!! While Guru set up the new server I fretted. And discussed the rather pricey option of data recovery. Being a school means no moola. We lump it. Start from scratch. This was after I worked on a redesign and sort of pushed it. I finally won them over and it was looking good.
Then I have a epiphany. I remember some random item on Digg about a drive recovery store confessionals. That the majority of drives gone bad it was just the controller card. I run this by Guru. He says go for it. After sacrificing three more drives for their canabalized cards it boots up. With lightening speed we pull the site, republish and bam, website back up and on new server. Whoopee!
Colonialtown
Let me just say that we had to stick with overpriced because it was local. But we were a little late. None the less, service was cut four days before the final deadline. I even paid the night before but they didn’t check. Had to reset everything, no telling what still doesn’t work. Not happy about it but it mostly works now. Revisit next year.
Sentinel Blog
Typepad hiccuped. I watched the thread about the issue happening to the others. No problem on my end. I could still publish. Figured it was the joy of Ecto, that it had to be a web interface issue. Then after a week of no new post and three queued up, it happened to me. Of course I find it after every one has gone to bed. Takes a few days to fix and posts not worth posting, not timely any more. I had some good ones though. I must say this was the most pleasant of the four. They even made sure the one post to get to the server was posted properly.
I thought I would catch up though…
FML Blogs
Then Blog of the FML and Orlando Pumpers throw up all over themselves. A bazillion wordpress errors (trust me, I was keeping a tally). I had been hosting at Extendmac. Recently Brian Amerige began to focus on his upcoming app, Flow. He moved his stuff to MediaTemple and ceased hosting. He was nice enough to let any one with time left to sit it out but no renewals. I knew this but was procrastinating. I new that the errors were due to servers crunches on space and just need a little tweaky with phpMyAdmin. So that night I started my search for new hosting. I couldn’t afford Media Temple and didn’t need that much power any way (nobody reads this crap). Dreamhost had some complaints from what I could gather so I ended up with Lunarpages. With cPanel and a price of just $10 more for a year (coupons) plus the ability to host four more domains it was a winner.
Then it all went dark. With new server info in hand and Transmit fired up, Extendmac was down. Blank and nowhere to be seen. Crap. Only emails I had were with the Extendmac domain. I fired some off, no returns so I wait till the next day. Write some more to other addresses found in google cached sites. Nothing. Dammit. Then I try the flow.com address. Presto response. He was looking into it. Okay. Took another day or so but it was back up. [I must say Brian was cool about helping and I wish him luck on Flow, it does look really interesting and will be going for a beat when its public.]
Now for the moving. Never done it. Made lots of stupid errors. Need to fix DB before moving it. Upgrade WP, then add themes and plugins. Too may index files because I am not watching. Reset admin passwords and write them down so I don’t forget in three minutes. I stayed away from it all over the weekend for a break but spent six hours last night and got everything back up and running, I think.
Over all I learned a lot and can say some of it was fun but I don’t want to do this again. Sucks, I had a few subscribers but they seem to have dropped pretty quick. Can’t blame them. It was like I disappeared. Also, this last one happened over my birthday weekend. That stunk a little.
Things are up and running and I have some truly nifty things in the pipeline. Stayed tuned.
“La Strada – Criterion Collection” (Federico Fellini)
“Marie Antoinette” (Sofia Coppola)
I have watched several movies this break (while doing nothing much else). Here are two I have finished. I can adhd a few movies at a time when watching by myself.
La Strada
This an Italian language flick directed by Ferdrico Fellini. This was the film that blew up Anthony Quinn’s career. It is an absolutely amazing performance of a street performer, Zampano, that acquires a new assistant, Gelsomina played by Giulietta Mesina, Fellini’s wife. Nepotism has never worked better.
It is a bit surreal in that the story sort of floats by. Under the guise of the travel performer the plot follows their meandering course. Despite the womanizing and physical abuse, Gelsomina grows to adore Zampano in a way that only she can and with the realization that only she maybe be able to adore him. She refuses the variety of opportunities to leave but stays by his side to a disastrous end.
Filmed in black and white it is gorgeously photographed. Mature camera angles, use of depth of field and long dolly shots make the best use of the bleak Italy surroundings. traveling through the still war torn areas of poorer Italy you get wrapped in to the story. It also helps the meandering feel by a lack of visual anchors for you to hang on to. It forces the landscape on you and the stark realities of the relationship is more in focus on this backdrop. The minimalist vibe to the story is due to Fellini coming out of the Italian Neorealism camp that forced bleak backrdrops, long takes and focus on characters out of the lower class.
Quinn’s Zampano is a brute but manages to eke out enough humanity for you to begin to root for him to finally become aware of Gelsomina’s adoration. He portrays the characteristics of a past rough life without soliloquy and extraneous action. Zampano also embodies what Italy, maybe even Europe, was like at the time. Mesina’s wide eyed simpleton is absolutely absorbing. It is as if she is beyond knowledge but is the only one to have it all figured out.
A masterpiece. Also first winner of Best Foreign Film Oscar
This is a glossy telling of the name sake’s life around the time Marie came of age and became queen. I liked “Lost in Translation” (Sofia Coppola) but this is a bit different in that its focus is not on the plot per say but on the subtle reasons behind royals actions. We know what happens in the end, heads roll. It is the small conversations that get portrayed by Coppola that provide the enlightening to the why of the matter. It is glossy and a little sugary but it is beautifully photographed, well acted and the modern soundtrack is great (it works wonderfully . Worth a see in my opinion.
Technorati Tags: coppola, fellini, la strada, marie antionette, puppy, puppy, review
“Berlin Noir (Crime, Penguin)” (Philip Kerr)
This is the best noir I have read in a while. The spin here is that the intrigue is easily set in 1939 Germany. Hitler, Goerring and Himmler rule and there is enough danger to go around without a former cop getting wrapped up in the the arson of a pair of lovers, stolen jewels and the murder of a gay assistant to a top Nazi along with the Jewish underground and communist anarchy suffering a slow, violent death. Without the violence of “Red Harvest” (Dashiell Hammett) or the over the top mannerisms of “The Long Goodbye” (Raymond Chandler) it still maintains every bit of the darkness that gives the genre its name. This is good stuff. Plus this book is a trio of novels, so it should last me a bit at the rate I’m reading. This is a good break from Leonard and Hiassen.
The Water Heater
The water has been on the offensive for the past two weeks. Started last week. Christina won an amazing battle with an exploding pipe. Seems that one of the pipes leading water into the monster burst, spewing water (thankfully cold) all over the laundry room. Without losing her cool (that comes later) she blasted through the Depot, found the right pipe and presto change-o water ran again. But… Continue reading ‘Welch versus …’
This is actual a repost from my Orlando Sentinel Colonialtown Blog, I figured I share this one here as well
One of the nifty things of living this close to downtown is the close gathering of different individuals. I have noticed that the spectrum of people living, not just in Colonialtown but in close proximatey of Downtown, is quite broad. You can see it in the businesses, bars and restaurants. Having grown up in a small town I love the ability to meet up with new perspectives, ages and new people. I talked earlier about a couple of groups I am involved with but have also found a few more. Here they are below. Continue reading ‘Florida Creatives, CoworkingOrlando and Orlando Ruby Users Group’
Checked last night and what did I see, they posted my movie. Late for Work was my entry into their reality contest. I have a full description earlier. I have also added a blog from their site but that is mainly for their community though, nothing new on it.
Be sure to check out the version on The Lot as it has the intro I left off of the version earlier that I Revverized. If you want to vote I believe you have to register. I have already gotten one review with four stars. Votes are mainly an ego thing because they apparently do not effect my chances of getting on the show. They entry is judged on its on with the dvd and application I submitted.
I have also added a few more spots to hit the movie in the comments of the description earlier.
Here go, the easy links section:
On The Lot: Late For Work
My description and revverized version of Late For Work
Late for Work at popcurrent and The Video Awards
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