For the past twenty years or so I've been on a spiritual quest.  I've been trying to find a place in the world of religion/spirituality.  Along that route, I've explored various forms of Buddhism, Christianity, Gnosticism, and Wicca, amongst other things.  It is all coming to a head now, as I try to find a spiritual place that accepts me as a gay man.  It appears I've come full circle.  I started Buddhist practice when I was twelve.  I left it behind me in a futile attempt to fit into a Christian lifestyle.  Now, the more I reflect on it, the more I realize Zen is where I belong.  I'm just not comfortable with Christianity.  Too many Christian leaders are opposed to homosexuality and gay marriage for my tastes.  I've also missed the peace that Zen brings when it is practiced.  So back to Zen I go.  Trying to find a local Sangha to join so I can get back into the groove.  

Note that I'm not saying Christianity is bad or wrong.  It brings comfort to a lot of people.  It's just not for me.   

Apple has a new iPod shuffle out.  I was in the market for a new one, since the first gen I'm using is starting to lose its ability to hold a charge.  But I'll never buy this new one.  Sure, the ability of the new shuffle to talk is kind of cool, but you have to use the Apple earbuds to control it.  I hate earbuds to begin with, and Apple's aren't all that great.  The shuffle itself has no controls.  That means I can't use my own earphones with it.  

Someone said to me:  "Well, their will be 3rd party earphones for it soon enough."  Yeah, but I want to use the earphones I already have.  Way to go Apple.  You saved an ounce and lost a sale.   

Molly Wood has a good analysis of the appearance of Dr. Manhattan's penis in Watchmen and America's reaction to it.  

http://themolly.com/blog/?p=146

 

I'm trying to learn Cocoa Programming, but I hate Objective-C.

I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.  

Why couldn't Apple use a C++ interface?  *sigh*.   

Saw Watchmen last night, and figured I'd do a very quick review.  I'm a fan of the Graphic Novel, but I'm not a hopeless fanboy, so I think I can be objective.  I stayed away from spoilers to the best of my ability, and I don't cover any material that isn't already covered in other reviews.  

I'll start with the good stuff.  The movie is visually striking.  It was like watching the graphic novel.  It was very immersive, and I really got into it.  The pacing was also excellent, and I didn't once feel bored during the movie (which is 2 hours and 43 minutes long).   The actor who plays Rorschach was pretty much perfect in the role.  I can't really complain about the actors who played Night Owl, the Silk Specter, Dr. Manhattan, and the Comedian either.  They did an adequate job.  None of them gave Oscar worthy performances, but I wasn't expecting them to.  

Now on to the bad.  The actor who plays Ozymandias is all wrong.  He looks way too young to be a man who's traveled the world.  He gave a very flat performance to boot.  The music choices were so-so.  Hallellulah was absolutely the wrong music choice when it appeared.  In fact, the scene in which it appears is just horribly executed.  The New York Times called it  the "hands-down winner of the bad movie sex award, superhero division," and I have to agree.  The same scene is the graphic novel was meant to be tender, and it just came off as silly on-screen.  Camp is not something I'd expect in a movie made from the greatest graphic novel ever written, but there it is.  

There's a lot of talk about Dr. Manhattan and his blue penis flopping around.  I honestly didn't notice it, and didn't find it distracting.  The only reason I noticed it all was because it caused fits of giggling in the audience (too many teenagers *sigh*.)  I did find the excessive violence distracting.  Yes, the graphic novel was violent, but it was violence as a means to an end, not an end unto itself.  

Considering how good most of the casting was, I couldn't get over how horrible Nixon looked.  He was like a bad caricature of Nixon, rather than the man himself.  A minor gripe, to be sure, but a legitimate one.  

I was eagerly looking forward to see this movie.  I wasn't horribly disappointed.  I'm not even the least bit upset about the plot changes, both minor and major.  They were understandable changes that were necessary in order to translate the graphic novel into a movie.  However, if I knew then what I know now, I probably wouldn't have gone on opening night.  I would have waited for a matinee.  I might even have waited until it came out on DVD.  

It was a good movie, but it was not a great movie.  It proved to me that Watchmen is not, as Alan Moore claims, unfilmable.  I do wonder, though, if it's possible to do the graphic novel justice in only 3 hours.  I think fans would have been better served by a mini series or a trilogy of movies.  There's just too much density and movement in the graphic novel to easily translate it to the screen.  My biggest complaint was that the movie felt short, even at almost 3 hours.  There's a rich movie there struggling to get out, but the execution fell flat.  There was too much emphasis of style over substance.  In the end, I came away feeling awed by the visuals, disappointed with much of the performance, and frustrated by the lack of depth, depth that was present in the graphic novel.  

And, and just a quick note to parents:  Do not bring your children to see this movie.  The theater was filled with children, many of them under ten.  I'm no prude, nor do I believe all children are the same, but the level of violence in this movie is phenomenal.  It's not a movie for kids.  There's a rape, multiple murders, bone-crushing, murder, etc, all in very graphic detail.  Leave the kids at home for this one.   

It's 3 am and I can't sleep.  I hate Insomnia.  Not sure what's keeping me up, but I'm dog tired.  I'm sure I'll fall asleep eventually.  Oh well, I'll just watch the Watchmen trailer again.  I'm *so* going to see this on opening day.


 

The name of the song is "Extraordinary Ways' by Conjure One featuring vocals by Poe.  This song reminds me of my partner, Ed. 

Yesterday was the seven year anniversary of the death of my best friend.  Made it through surprisingly unscathed.  I think it's because I've moved and all the visual cues are now gone.  Perhaps the distance of time is playing a role as well.  I had a bummer day, but it wasn't anywhere near as dreadful as in years past. 

Now I just have to make it through his birthday, on Dec 12th.  That wasn't usually as bad as December 1st though.

After months of horrible insomnia, I finally started getting to sleep early (around 11 pm), and getting 6 or 7 hours of continuous sleep.  The insomnia was due to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  Now, though, I have bronchitis and can't sleep.  It's 3:30 am, and I'm trying to wear myself out.  Blah, I say, blah.  I sent an email to my partner telling him not to let me sleep too late, because I don't want to get in that habit of staying up late and sleeping late.  I want to be part of the world, not a creature of the night, lol.

*sigh*  Bronchitis sucks. 

I've fallen in love with "Let it Ring" by Amy Ray

This is a fan video from youtube.

I'm writing for a new online destination site called "Apple Thoughts." It's part of a group of sites, like Zune Thoughts and Pocket PC thoughts. We cover Apple news and Apple products. If you're have an iPhone/iPod Touch and/or a Mac, go take a look:

http://www.applethoughts.com

I decided that it might be cool to have my MacBook be a dual boot Machine: OSX and Linux. After doing a little research, I found out how it was done (and it was surprisingly easy.)

1st thing I did was use Boot Camp to partition the drive. I set up 27 gigs for Linux, figuring I'd use it a reasonable amount of time, but that I'd use OSX more (because of Photoshop and Lightroom, primarily.) I then installed rEfit (http://refit.sourceforge.net/). This program allows me to choose which partition to load from at boot time. Once the drive was partitioned, I ignored Boot Camp's request to install windows. Instead, I put my Ubuntu CD in the drive, rebooted the machine, held down the "c" key to boot from the cd and went into the Ubuntu installer.

I erased the partition created by boot camp (sda3) and created a new partition. Because MacBooks have an issue with extra partitions, I did not create a swap partition. Instead, after I installed Ubuntu, I create a swap file. More on that later.

( cut due to length...click for more )

I was just saying to Ed the other day that I've never had a major hard drive crash.  I've always had plenty of warning before a hard drive fail and I've never lost Data.

Well, my external starting acting funny on the MacBook, so I got all the data off immediately.  Then, all of the sudden, iTunes couldn't find my music directory on the network.  I checked the media server, and it was locked up.  I rebooted, and the first drive (with the OS) is fine.  The second drive with the music (about 40 gigs worth) is toast.  I'm not sure of the extent of the damage yet.  Most of that music is backed up on DVD's, so it shouldn't be too hard to put it back together, but I got a nice taste of humility today.  

I hate humility lessons.  LOL.

Thank God for Pandora.  It's been a life saver.

I'm not often overly proud of images I do in Photoshop. I'm good, but not great. But this picture really made me feel okay after I finished it. It's a Djinn being summoned in Philadelphia (It's from a scene in the novel I'll be working on for National Novel Writers Month). The only piece that isn't really mine is the backdrop, which came from a royalty-free photo. I cartoonized it, though, to make sure the Djinn didn't look too awful against the backdrop. Note: Fire is hard. Magic, not so much.

Note that it's the Fallen Angel kind of Djinn, not the genie in a lamp type.

( Cut due to size of picture )

Gearing up for National Novel Writer's Month

Decided to do a cover for the book I'm working on this year. (Picture links to the full size image).

Anyone that might want to try out NaNoWriMo this November should go to http://nanowrimo.org

I've lived here in Honesdale, PA for about 6 months now.  It's freaking me out a little.  When you step in a crosswalk, the cars all stop.  People stop and say hi and talk to you, even if they don't know you.  For the most part, the children are respectful (there are always exceptions to that, but not many here.)  The store owners are knowledgeable and friendly.  There's an air of hope and dignity.

I feel like I've stepped into The Stepford Wives.

It's not like I moved that far.  An hour, that's it.  I lived in Liberty, NY before this, where if you stepped out in the street you'd likely get run down unless you were damn sure you had enough time and space.  People would rather flip you the bird than say hi.  The store owners are generally greedy, shifty, and unpleasant. 

What a difference an hour makes.  I can't believe how weird this place seems to me.  Things move a few heartbeats slower, and I'll NEVER get used to that.  Hippies and Republicans dance in the public square together (Okay, that's not true.  Pure Hyperbole, but I could see it happening here.)  You get the idea.  It's a strange place.

Some of it is the nature of the residents.  There are a lot of artists, writers, etc.  There's a Yoga center, and they own a Cafe right on Main Street.  There are also scads of rednecks and scads of Republicans (I'm not making a judgment, just a statement of demographics).  Yet somehow, everyone gets along.  It's a tad weird, but I think part of has to do with the growth the town seems to be making, even in the midst of economic crisis and the presence of a business destroying Walmart.   The population easily triples (or more) in the summer.  There's lots of steady busy and a reliable income stream. 

I don't know if I'll ever get used to it though.  I keep looking behind my back as I walk the main drag, waiting for the kids with knifes and guns to show up.  That's what used to happen.  Why can't I just leave it in NY?

Ed got me an Amazon Kindle.  It came in the mail today.  All I have to say is OMG, this thing rocks.

I converted a whole bunch of my ebooks to MobiBook format to work with it.  I literally have hundreds to convert yet.

I eventually plan on replacing my entire physical library (except for reference books and a few other things) with Kindle versions. 

It works flawlessly.  I can't believe how amazingly easy it is to read on this thing.  I'm in love with reading all over again. 

Ed saw me using it for fifteen minutes and bought one for himself.  Yeah, it's that good.

Ed and I leave tomorrow morning for Philadelphia for Podcamp Philly.  w00t!  Can't wait.  2 day conference on New Media, SEO, and other fun topics.  Hurray.

My current list of my favorite programming quotes and axioms. Add your own favorites in the comments if you're a programmer. I've responded to some of the quotes. If so, my response is separated out by square brackets [like this - dogboi]

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