kirabug’s idea files

Trust me, the comic I wanted to post right now is much bigger.

I may not be able to tell a llama from an alpaca, but I can tell a sheep from a poodle. Reminds me of a story I was told by my dad about a man who went to jail for selling “miniature” Saint Bernards to apartment owners…. only they weren’t miniatures, they were puppies. If you’re about to buy an animal you’ve never seen before, maybe you should do a Google image search first to make sure you know what you’re getting?

**Update: looks like it was the reporter who got fleeced on this one.

It’s well on record that I don’t like TV.

(Well, it is somewhere. Take my word for it.)

I’m way late to this party, I know. Firefly aired years ago, when I was well off of TV, and even now it’s all I can do to sit in front of one that’s not playing baseball. I heard all about this sci-fi western but missed actually seeing it. Still, when everywhere you go and everything you read keeps circling back to the Browncoats, you know you’re missing something.

The buzz started again when Serenity was approaching and in theaters.

Last Christmas, Nighthawk got both the show and the movie on DVD. Every Thursday for 7 weeks, we curled up on the sofa together and watched two episodes of Firefly, and after the first episode I was hooked. The music is addictive. The writing is solid, the characterization is of whole people, and the plot twists are certainly not the usual trite crap. Sometimes you see what’s coming but usually you don’t. Granted, it helped that I had someone to share it with — that Nighthawk and I were both seeing it for the first time — and that it was probably the only time we had each week together watching the same show and just being.

We had a good-sized break between Firefly and Serenity, due to life being life, and we finally watched the movie tonight. It hurts to know it’s over. I’ve got a lot of things available to cry about right now, and a movie is not at the top of the list, but I’m surprised myself at how much I want to see Serenity in the air again.

As for me, when I get two seconds of my own (I’ve stolen these two seconds, so they don’t count), I’m going to write Joss and the cast a thank-you letter.

On the George Foreman iGrill:

• I don’t care if you’re using direct heat and cooking outdoors, if you’re cooking with electricity it’s not a grill. You can go get a gas grill the size of a tackle box, or a charcoal grill slightly larger than a 9-inch plate. Don’t cook with electricity and call it grilling. Leave Mr. Foreman indoors.
• I own an older Foreman Grill and let me tell you, those things can get greasy no matter how well you clean them. Grease and electronics don’t mix. Please make sure to use some cheapass iPod clone (or maybe not-so-cheapass — Zune?) with your grill so you don’t grease up anything with an actual value.

Okay, so, my aunt passed away yesterday, and I spent most of the rest of the day making travel plans. Will fly out Saturday and return Monday. Whee. There’s a lame-o sketchy theater in the queue for Saturday and nothing currently queued for Tuesday. My hotel in Colorado has high-speed so I’ll be online at some point.

Today I’m in training, which is cool. Had junk for breakfast, will probably have junk for lunch. Should be monitoring comments all day – well, until date night tonight.

Here’s an interesting article comparing the delay of Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) to stalled code for OS 8 (Copland) which never appeared, and to the delays of Microsoft Vista. It’s fairly well-blanaced and makes some interesting points, though it’s got a visible Mac bias. (You can’t bash Microsoft’s hardware record based on the Zune without mentioning their insane success with the XBox line, for example).

I’d totally back Microsoft doing a full rewrite of Windows from a stable base up. It really did wonders for the stability of the Mac and it would certainly plug a significant number of the security holes in Windows. The risks are so great, though, that I have trouble believing Microsoft would actually do it. Maybe as a side-project with clear acknowledgement that it’s not going to be compatible with Win 98-level legacy code…

Anyway, a good read, worth checking out.

I’m told this has been around for a while, but it’s the first time I’ve seen Red VS Blue: Real life versus internet. (Warning: video, requires sound.) (Oh, and language, but if you give a damn about that what’re you doing here?)