Category Archives: Misc

Miscellaneous content that really has no other category

BRB 24

29 Replies

Bitch President Say hello to “Cherry Jones”. This typical late-middle aged woman might look very normal – but she is not normal in the least. She is so far from normal that her existence has changed the world forever. She has done something so entirely profound that I can barely form the patterned ascii text to describe its happenings. This woman… has officially ended my viewing and fanship of the television program “24”.

Officially. Ended.

I have been a 24 fan since college when I purchased the first season on DVD. I watched it nearly in one sitting, and was purely gripped by the show. I have viewed every moment, the entirety of the series, seasons 1 through season 6; but I will not be watching, mentioning, talking about, or even trying to follow along with season 7 of “Fox’s hit show” 24. Since the inception, fox has done everything in it’s power to ruin this sacred and acclaimed television drama. Continually ridiculous plot lines grow with sheer linear upwardness – and interesting, deep characters are banished by death from the show leaving quirky asshole bitches the main focus.

Season 6 permanently jaded me… I was positive that I could never – NEVER – feel the same way about 24 as I did in seasons 1,2,3 and even 5. “Twenty-Four” crossed a very very serious line and there was no coming back from it. I can’t even bring myself to go into details- but season 6 of 24 was just dogshit. I hated it. 80% of why I maintained viewing it was because I wanted to win money from vanlandw because that douche hole love child is definitely Jack’s son. Even then, I was dangerously close to banishment of the show.

Enter Mrs. “Cherry Jones”.

For those of you who do not know, Cherry Jones is going to be the President of the United States in the next season of 24. I had heard this rumor, and VANBERGS informed me that he was pretty sure it was official. He was correct (As seen here). I can’t quite even put my finger on ‘why’ – but the fact that 24 is putting a woman president into the mix has launched raw fury and unbridled hatred onto the camels back, shattering the camel into a Rob Zombie film. “Broke the Camels Back” is hardly an accurate description.

I, Vanberge, am never watching 24 again.

Google Desktop

10 Replies

Finally… one of my favorite applications has been ported over to “teh” linux. (Now we just need iTunes, Counter Strike, and some (by ‘some’ i mean ANY) video editing applcation). Digress: Google released Google desktop for Linux. I’ve used Google Desktop for awhile – both at home and at work. Let me tell you something – if you haven’t used desktop search in some capacity yet in your life, then you are seriously missing out. Instead of trying to remember which folder under “My Documents” you might have put your resume; or where that video of “3rd Strike – No light” is currently residing; just pop open the desktop search and type “eric vanbergen resume” (obviously inserting your own name); “3rd strike”; or whateve else you want to find on your computer.

Without failure, the result is exactly what you are looking for. I have used a couple different search tools (including Beagle). They all do a pretty good job… Hell, even Micrsoft’s Desktop Search is phenominal, but… I do like Google’s better. In my opinion, its the best desktop search tool out there. It indexes files, word docs, pdf’s, media files (id3, even.. i think), your email, your gmail, your web history… etc.

The linux version is Beta – and with Google’s track record it will probably be Beta till about the year 2047. I’m not complaining though, Google’s beta software is better than 99% of other software in the world today. Hopefully they decide to add the sidebar with the next linux version though. I don’t see it in this initial release, and that is one killer part of the Google Desktop.

At any rate: Check out some screenies of Google Destkop running in Linux

Of other note – We now have two pets. 1 gato named “Kitt” that has been with us for 3 years, and now we’ve added “Kali” (prn: calley) the Scottish Terrier. So far, all is well. She’s a good dog and seems to get along with our cat very well. A few screenshots of “teh” dog are available as well.

Online Selling

15 Replies

About a year ago, i purchased www.thesciontc.com. Originally I had fully intended to make that into a Scion enthusiasts website and online community. I made a weak attempt, and really just didn’t have the time or energy to put into it. So, my motivation and the site began to lack and eventually just sat static. Fast forward to last week. I was approached by somebody interested in purchasing the domain. My initial thought was ‘nope’ – thats too good of a domain name to let go. I even put some time back into the site and upgraded the forums. But, after a couple days the idea of selling seemed to get better and better. We settled on a good price, and my paypal account balance confirmed that the sale was for real.

I was kind of intimidated to tell the truth… I had never sold a website before and really didn’t know how to do it. Turns out it’s really not that hard. The buyer initiates a change of registrar, and you give the buyer the site’s authorization code and unlock the domain from your own registrar. A couple clicks and that was the end of it. BRB thesciontc.com. I hope your new owner treats you better than I did.

To go along with selling things in and around the online arena, I’ve finally decided to sell some things on eBay… I’ve been a member of eBay since the year 2000, but I’ve never bought anything or sold anything on ebay. In fact, i have no idea why i am a member – Or, why I can still remember a password that i created 7 years ago and haven’t used since. Regardless, the task of listing an item for auction is another new venture for me. It was easy enough to do – and I had two bids within a half hour on my first auction. Thus, I decided to post another auction.

So far, I am just lightening up on video games by selling all of my final fantasy games:
Auction 1 – Final Fantasy Playstation Lot
Auction 2 – Final Fantasy GBA/DS Lot

Both of those “Lots” are pretty impressive collections of Final fantasy games – And i’ve already played through the vast majority of them and as such will never do so again. Also it turns out a couple of those titles are pretty rare, so I have pretty high hopes for these two auctions of mine.

I’m feeling “entrepreneurial” from an online perspective and brainstorming a bunch of online ideas. We’ll see what happens in the long run here.

The Sopranos Series Finale

4 Replies

I liked it.

I’ve watched every episode to date of this mobster drama – and i’ve been consistently happy with the show. The Sopranos is a consistent show – and it’s probably the 2nd best television show of all time. Shows like “24” have steep up/down times. High apexes of fantastic thrilling drama are fought by immediate downslopes of boredom and wrongdoing from a production standpoint. 24 is the greatest show ever, and its the worst thing on TV the next episode.

The Sopranos is not that way. It is consistently a fantastic show and never veers far from that mark.

Enough background.

Let me begin by saying that ANY way this series ended would have failed to meet expectations. It’s just impossible to conclude a series of this magnitude in a way that won’t disappoint somebody.

With that said, I like the series finale. I enjoyed this series finale and I enjoyed the way that concluded the series. I enjoyed everything about it. The setting, the feel, the anticipation, even the song. In my opinion, the series finale was a fantastic showing. I just signed offline because Vanbergs told me he purchased a bicycle.

In detail, here’s why I liked the series finale. Tony has been depressed and dealt with depression in his family for the entirety of the show. He fought with his wife, he dealt with problems his son had, and he dealt with all that in his role as ‘boss’ as well. It is not debatable: Tony Soprano had a dark life.

****Spoiliers****
The ending of the series did a fantastic job of bringing everything to a happier and optimistic end for Tony. The song, the entrance of his family members, with these things the viewers get a sense of happiness where all the bad and shitty things with the characters’ lives are behind them. Tony Soprano is a happy man at the end of the series. He’s getting along with his wife, the issues with his son are resolved, and he’s free to have this meal with his family without having to worry about his mob stresses now that Phil Leotardo had been taken care of.

Although the cinematography creates suspense for the viewer, there is care free bliss amongst the Soprano Family as they sit and enjoy their last meal together. Tony is the happiest he had ever been in the entire series at the moment he dies. His last vision is his daughter Meadow running into the restaurant. Just for a split second, the whole family is together. The last image Tony sees, the last thing he experiences is his entire family together. He hadn’t experienced that for a very long time – if at all in the entire series.

It was definitely his last moment. Even though it is not shown, Tony Soprano was murdered. There is absolutely nothing else that 5 solid seconds of black silence can signify. The music stops abruptly, and the series is concluded. (BTW: Journey was a fantastic choice). I’m actually glad that it ended the way it did… If they would have shown Tony getting killed, I am sure that I would have physically wept and possibly spun into a sobbing fetal position.

The Series finale did a fantastic job of doing all this without coming off as rushed or cheesy.

In my opinion, congratulations David Chase and HBO for a phenominal series, start to finish.

The P4P Quoteboard

36 Replies

***Edit*** I am going to delete comments that are not ‘quotes’ ***Edit***

I had what I believe to be a pretty good idea. Starting a wordpress/commenting quoteboard. I always hear/read quotes that i wish i would have written down. I think that having this will be a good solution; quotes can just be commented in. I’ll permalink this post in the header nav if it seems to stick, which i hope it will. Because i do think it’s a pretty good idea. Please feel free to contribute via comment!

Format:
quote | who is quoted | brief explanation(optional)

Examples

  • “Nothing you can contemplate will ever be the same” | Iron Maiden | A lyric from the song ‘Wickerman’
  • “Say hello to your brother” | Jack Bauer | Parting statement to a dying Fayed.
  • “It ends tonight” | Neo | A comment that begins one of the best fights in movie History

Ker plunk

7 Replies

This past weekend resulted in a very comical scenario (unordered list):

The Short:

  • I have now have a new cell phone.

The Long:

  • I currently have a motorola V710, and its a great phone. But its a big phone (almost annoyingly big), and the battery life is abysmal. Its been losing its charm day by day, and I really became fed up with it overall.
  • Sunday morning came, and I started talking about wanting to get a new cell phone. Playful arguments ensued, and the determination was made that I could not get a new cell phone at this time.
  • My parents were coming down to visit and grab some wedding pics, so I started getting ready. Ate some quick breakfast, showered… Then, I grabbed my V710 (Still wrapped in Towel)
  • I delicately slide my V710 onto the bathroom counter… The V710 continues to slide, nearly stopping at the edge of the counter, but ultimately diving off the counter.
  • The V710 bounces off the wall mounted toilet paper roll…
  • The V710 bounces on the rim of the toilet seat…
  • The V710 submerges itself completely in the water of my toilet…
  • I grab the V710, flip it open, and watch the screen display an assortment of torrid colors before fading to darkness.
  • I pulled the battery as soon as I could, but damage was done… Even nearly a week later, the phone’s buttons do not work (although, it will boot up correctly).

So, I am now the proud owner of a motorola razr V3m. And this phone is phenominal. It has EVDO (which, apparently stands for EVolution Data Optimizer) – Basically, my cell phone is pretty much broadband speed. I haven’t found a speed test that will work on the browser, but it is light years past my V710’s internet speeds.

This RAZR also maintains all the functionality of my V710 – It plays mp3’s, it plays 3gp videos, it has a MicroSD slot, it has a 1.3 mp camera (which the quality is much better than the V710 as well). Not bad considering that it was 80 dollars vs. almost 160 for my V710 over a year ago.

Overall, it was a very funny situation. It’s not every day your phone ends up in the shitter.