The Ninth Strange Day

Saw it.

Loved it.

It was great and it would have been better without the idiots in the theatre who seemed to think that just because it was a cartoon that they watch on television they could treat the theatre like their living room. Kids way old enough to know better (ie: teens and “‘tweens”) were running up and down the aisles. People were laughing at things and then having to repeat it over and over again, which meant they were talking over the movie. But enough about the people The Simpsons routinely mocks the audience.

It was good! It was like a really good, long episode. The animation was really nicely done. Everyone looked right, but there was more of a sense of depth and size. The story was up to Simpsons standard — Homer screws up, everyone gets angry, and in the end he saves the day. Lots of Homer hurting himself. Lots of Lisa suffering from righteous indignation. Lots of Bart being a smartass. Lots of Marge getting to the heart of things. Lots of Maggie being magic.

They also managed to get away with a few things that they can’t get away with on the show. Like full-frontal nudity, one rude gesture, and one “god damn”.

Worth seeing in a theatre? Probably not if you have a kick-ass system at home (especially if you’ve got high def). Not unless you can get to a matinée that’s nearly empty because really the biggest problem was the audience.

I’m an avid reader. Kitti is always “mentioning” that we have too many books and not enough shelves. I also hate having to lug around a huge bag just so I can have a book (or books) that I’m reading handy.

Does anyone make a really good ebook reader? I found one that wasn’t terribly expensive, was capable of holding about 200 books with a 128 meg memory card, but it doesn’t support PDF format. The Sony one is higher in price, but I can’t find anything that says if it’s okay with ebooks not purchased from Sony’s CONNECT (I like to get stuff from Project Guttenberg).

I have a Sony MP3 player, and it’s okay with non-secure mp3 files that I transfer myself, but you can never tell, you know? All the FAQ and tutorial stuff seems to focusing on putting pictures on the ebook.

I used to use the Treo for reading, but the screen is way too small and it really kills the battery to read a book on it. The small screen size was the biggest problem, though. One screen of text would load and I’d already be ready to move on to the next page. I was hitting the down button about every 30-45 seconds.

I just want something that’s about book-size. I don’t need bells, whistles, mp3 capabilities, and all that nonsense. I just want to be able to carry a lot of books around with me all the time and actually be able to read them.

Mim got Deathy Hallows yesterday and stayed up past her bedtime to finish it. I’ll be getting it from her later today and alienating Kitti when I refuse to do anything other than read it.

In an unrelated story, I’ve decided to start using AIM more often. My name’s jimmythelox, so why not send me a message and say hey. Introduce yourself though. Even if I know you, I might not recognise your screen name.

Kitti spotted an American Goldfinch hanging around on our sunflowers, picking out seeds. The conversation went something like this:

Kitti: Come see this cool bird!
Me: Ooh!
Kitti: It’s so yellow, I almost didn’t see it against the sunflowers. It blends right in. What is it?
Me: Looks like some kind of a finch. I’ll go look it up.

…. In hindsight, “Goldfinch” should have been my first guess. Now let’s all sing “Goldfinches” to the tune of “Goldfinger”.

My mother will be killing me later for sticking that song in her head.

This is bad, right? A nuclear reactor in Japan leaks into the sea and my very first thought is “OH EM GEE! GODZILLA!”

No wait! This is legit! This is about sharing documents and transferring files from person to person when the file’s too large to be emailed.

I’m a (sort-of) writer and sometimes I’ll write something and want to share it with my friends just to get their feedback and thoughts. Sometimes the file’s too big to send via email, and sometimes attachments just get lopped off by anti-virus software and spam filters.

There’s a lot of services out there that will let you upload your files and share the link with other people, and Driveway is the newest online file sharing site. 500 MB Max For Each Upload, Unlimited total storage, and no download limits. That last is a really strong point for me, because a lot of the sites allow only a certain number of downloads and then they remove the file.

What makes this one a little bit different is the fact that it uses “widgets”, which are like the “hot new thing” in online lingo. The “Widget” comes into play if you upload a file as okay to Edit. You can use the Edit Widget to open the document directly from the browser interface to edit or save it to your desktop for editing later. The Edit widget uses your Microsoft office application installed on your PC to directly edit the document stored on the Driveway system. (If you’re familiar with Sharepoint, it’s kinda like that).

So you will need Microsoft Office. If you don’t have it, you can get just a regular link. In either case, you can get the link and email it to people yourself, or you can have it emailed right from the page. If you fill in your address in the “from” space (even if you leave “to” blank), you’ll get an email with the link.

The email will also include a link to delete the file from Driveway’s storage. Driveway values user’s data privacy and does not publicize any Parkit links proactively. The only person who gets the link is the person (or people) you send it to. This means that presentation you’ve got to send to Jim in Omaha is only going to be found by Jim in Omaha.