you sick liiitle monkeeeey!

In my continuing list of funny names, the aptly-named Director of the WHO’s HIV prevention program:

“World Health Organisation (WHO) says male circumcision must be part of HIV prevention package, which includes voluntary counselling and testing. Dr Kevin De Cock, director of WHO’s HIV/Aids department, said the UNAids recommendation is a significant step towards HIV prevention.”

read whole story:
http://allafrica.com/stories/200703300347.html

Woot!!! I finally ordered a PS3, 4 months after their initial release. For the last few months, I checked online every few days to see who was selling them. Circuit City had them, but I didn’t want to go to New Jersey to get one. All the NY stores were fresh out.

But a few days ago, I placed my order on Buy.com. I guess Sony finally had a big production run, because today, passing the Gamestop in Manhattan Mall on the way to the office, I saw the front window piled with PS3 display boxes. I was waiting for Amazon and Buy.com to get them in stock because I have their credit cards and anything I buy from them gives me 3% reward points for more goodies.

Amazon had free shipping. Buy.com charged $17. On this alone, the choice was obvious, but Buy.com has a points club called Yub (Buy backwards.. how clever…) that gives members 1%. I also had a 7% off coupon link (max of $25 off tho.. in case you tried to rape them and buy several HD TV’s..) .. I don’t know if my Yub points get credited, so for now, I saved $10.. but better than nothing..

Flipside: Buy.com hasn’t shipped the thing yet. I ordered 4 days ago. Amazon Prime is free 2-day shipping… the dilemmas.. maybe I should’ve not been a cheapass and just gone with Amazon, considering how much Buy.com’s customer services sucks and past negative shopping experiences with them.

I think I was the witness to some nasty NAMBLA action at the Knicks game tonight…

Ira, our sys admin, had gotten 3 tickets from Jason (CEO) earlier in the day. He came by my desk in the evening to say he was about to leave for a basketball game and that he had 2 extra tickets. This was 7:15 and Dominic (one of our programmers) and I were getting ready to leave, but since the venue, Madison Square Garden, was right across the street, we couldn’t let the tickets go to waste. Neither of us are basketball fans, but at $75 each, we figured someone should go.

The stadium was pretty packed.. almost all the seats were filled. In front of us were an older man, probably in his late 40’s, and a boy who looked to be about 12. Both of them were wearing baseball caps. I only noticed them when the man reached over and put his hand under the boys shirt and started rubbing the boy’s back! The boy’s shirt was halfway up his back. I pointed this out to Dominic, who was also disturbed by the scene.

During the halftime break, he asked the boy what he wanted to drink. (The boy responded “Sprite”). The man got up, leaving the boy by himself to play Zuma on his Razr. He was gone for a good twenty minutes, returning well into the 3rd quarter. Not only did he take way too long to buy a drink, he came back with a Snapple that he had already opened and was drinking from. The boy didn’t want it.

After he sat back down, he put his hand up the back of the boy’s shirt again. I dunno… awfully dubious.. I’ve never seen this before.

I watched Mission to Mars on my second screen as I update my blog tonight. What a pleasant surprise! I really enjoyed this film, despite the low expectation I had from its IMDB rating: a brutal 4.8! I generally agree with IMDB because of the law of averages. Given enough people, the ratings usually even out to a fairly good representation of a film’s entertainment value. From that, I usually get a good enough idea to make a decision on whether or not to spend 2 hours watching a film. One IMDB user wrote that it was a very under-rated film, and I like sci-fi a lot, so I put it on. After watching it, I think the rating is unfair. Red Planet, which came out the same year (2000) and was also about Mars, scored a 5.5. That is about how I’d rate it also… I remember renting it once and thinking it was pretty awful. But I’d give M2M at least a 7 or a 7.5. It definitely deserves more than a 4.8.

I think if it hadn’t been for Gary Sinise in the lead role, this film would’ve really sucked. He’s a really under-appreciated actor, IMO (he has won several awards though). In this role, he seemed a lot like the Lt. Dan character (Forrest Gump), but maybe only because he’s in a position of authority… or the fact that Sinise has that ageless face and silent confidence that pervades his roles.

All in all, it’s a pretty interesting story… but maybe that’s because I wasn’t paying that close attention to it. Usually when I watch a movie, it’s an instant love or hate reaction after the first 15-20 minutes. I get turned off really easily if the story is poorly written, formulaic, and just phoney.. I’m usually a very harsh critic of movies, but if the story is at least decent and competently written and directed, I’ll overlook some of the smaller flaws. I don’t know how to explain it, but I can spot a bad movie right away (the god-awful Lost in Space comes to mind). This movie didn’t do that, and in fact, I quite enjoyed it.

M2M is pretty slow at the beginning, with a lot of setup, and doesn’t really pick up until about halfway in, where the story’s pace really changes. I won’t spoil it for you, but I think director Brian de Palma rushed the ending a bit. The ending of this film remind me a lot of Contact (Jodie Foster) and AI, with the art direction looking a lot like Kubrick’s 2001.

..and yes, in the future, computers still speak in crappy monotone voices. They didn’t try to go all futuristic (movie takes place in 2020), which was a good call on the part of the production designers. Movies about the future that try to look like the future usually age very badly (Back to the Future II, Bill & Ted’s).

Here’s my amayllis in front of my prison window, about to flower, one week after my previous photo was taken.

Still no sign of my Fujiyama moss..

this guy reminds me a little of a very young Paul Sr from American Chopper, but if you put a handlebar moustache on most people, they’d look like Paul Sr too :)… that or a Village People

I know this sounds mean, but the kid in the back looks like one of the two-headed ogres in Warcraft.

Welcome to the anti-social. How many people have this thing besides me? So far, I have seen ZERO, that’s right, ZERO people with one of these. Everyone in New York has an iPod. I’ve only ever seen one woman with a Creative Zen. (It was as banged up as mine!)

From the looks of things, the Zune is a complete disaster. I’m the only person I know with a Zune. In fact, I own two, because the possibility of me finding another person to do a song transfer test with will be close to zero. The interface is alright, nothing special… screen looks very dull to me though, but what’s really really awful are the DRM mechanisms. Microsoft’s whole idea behind the Zune, is sharing, as embodied in their tagline: “Welcome to the Social”. Well.. they’ve crippled this device so much that, in reality, it’s more like “Welcome to the leper colony– Population: You.”

Not only does Microsoft have to pay Universal Music Group a ~$1 fee for the sale of every Zune, the Zune’s implementation itself is direct contradiction of itself. Microsoft makes a big noise on its Zune website about music sharing and “spreading the music”. Sure.. share all the music you want, but the recipient gets to play the song 3x, or 3 days, whichever comes first. Wi-Fi, sure, but no web browser..

Well.. here’s what I say to Microsoft: nice try, but keep trying.

Hopefully Microsoft wises up and releases a web browser and WiFi networking capabilities in the future, because as it currently stands, the Zune is pretty worthless.

This is kind of cute. A little illustration instead of an ugly, user-unfriendly error page. LinkedIn showing a little of their fun side.

..yes, nice and helpful Windows error screens and warnings, as always. Yesterday, I kept getting “page fault in non-paged area” on a PC I was trying to fix for a client. Then it tries to do a memory dump. I let it count to 50 before I got fed up and turned it off.

Today, I tried to open a zip file on my Snap server and Windows throws up this warning. Very helpful..

1. This is not a “page”. I am trying to open a .zip file. Why this error dialog has an “Internet Explorer” titlebar, only the devil knows.
2. Windows should know what I’m trying to do! What kind of operating system is this clueless? I’ve clicked on a zip file. Windows should know I’ve done that, if it’s going to throw up a security warning.