Dark Forces Book Group

Alamo Drafthouse to benefit Multiple Sclerosis Society

2010-02-08T19:00:00.004-06:00

I certainly have made it no secret that I am one of approximately 400,000 Americans (2.5 million worldwide) diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The National Multiple Sclerosis Society offers perhaps the best overall definition of the disease.

Multiple sclerosis is a chronic, unpredictable disease of the central nervous system (the brain, optic nerves, and spinal cord). It is thought to be an autoimmune disorder. This means the immune system incorrectly attacks the person's healthy tissue.

MS can cause blurred vision, loss of balance, poor coordination, slurred speech, tremors, numbness, extreme fatigue, problems with memory and concentration, paralysis, and blindness and more. These problems may be permanent or may come and go.

Most people are diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 50, although individuals as young as 2 and as old as 75 have developed it. MS is not considered a fatal disease as the vast majority of people with it live a normal life-span. But they may struggle to live as productively as they desire, often facing increasing limitations.

The NMSS does far more than define MS. They provide news, education, and material support for MS sufferers (I received my first cane through them). The group spearheads research efforts, offering grants and the like. The non-profit organization relies completely on donations to fund their philanthropic endeavors. Along these lines, the MS sponsors several annual fundraising events, most notably the regional Walk MS and Bike MS.

The 150 mile two-day ride from Houston to Austin (the MS 150) has become a staple April cycling event with thousands of regional participants. The only downside to the riders is the contacting your friends to beg for money. Worthy cause or not, it sucks.

Tim League, founder of the extraordinary Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, came up with this unique solution.

This year I am riding the MS150 with a group of friends. All of us agreed that we hate cold-calling our friends for money. So instead of traditional fundraising, our team is raising money for MS by hosting an awesome evening with a movie, a 4 course French meal and plenty of wine.

Please join us on Saturday, April 3rd at my house for an outdoor screening of the modern cycling classic The Triplets of Belleville. Executive chef John Bullington will be preparing a four course French meal to compliment the film and we will not be stingy with the wine.

Tickets for this event are $90, and all proceeds will be donated to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Donating to charity has never been this tasty.

It's that kind of creative thinking that placed the Alamo Drafthouse at #1 on Entertainment Weekly's 2005 list of "10 Theaters doing it right." And yet another reason that the Alamo Drafthouse is my favorite movie theater.

To order tickets or learn more about this event, visit the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema.

Campaign Manager 2008: The Review

2010-02-06T22:42:00.004-06:00

Jason Matthews and Christian Leonhard, designers of the 1960: The Making of the President boardgame, have just released Campaign Manager 2008 (through Z-Man Games).

Besides being about politics and having a bit of an area control idea, Campaign Manager doesn't have a whole lot in common with the earlier game. It sacrifices depth for speed: where 1960 might take 90 minutes to 2 hours to complete, Campaign Manager will probably finish in 30 minutes once the players are familiar with the rules. 1960, even though vastly simplified from Matthews' earlier award-winning Cold War CDG Twilight Struggle (designed with Ananda Gupta), still shows some American war game roots through the tight historical basis of its cards and the "chrome" of its debate sequence and endorsement rules. In contrast, Campaign Manager is more of a euro-style game, whose theme happens to be politics. Superficially, it reminded me a bit of Reiner Knizia's Battle Line, which hides its gin rummy roots behind a ancient battles theme.

The central conceit of Campaign Manager 2008 is contained in the title. In the weeks before the election, the contest has narrowed to 20 battleground states which each candidate must win to push his total past 270 electoral votes. The states, represented by nice thick placards, contain information on its number of electoral votes, the two dominant demographics in the states--for example, Clinton Democrats versus Jewish Conservatives--and where the state stands in connection to the two issues the candidates will fight over, the economy and defense. As states are won (rather than election day itself, think of a campaign reaching the point where it concedes the state and pulls its workers and advertising out) and new states come into play, you have to decide where you will place your resources. Each state begins with Red, Blue, and Undecided voters on each of the two issues. The campaigns are working to gain all the voters on the dominant side of an issue. If the dominant issue in a state is defense, for example, once one of the campaigns is able to shift all the voters concerned with that issue to his side, the state falls in his column.

Broadly speaking, the rules are simple enough. The Obama and McCain players each have separate decks of 45 cards each. They each have 10 of the 20 battleground states apiece. The game begins with the players going through their decks, pulling three cards and keeping one, to create a smaller deck of 15 cards they will cycle through over and over again. The cards obviously have different effects so you can try and fashion the deck according to your style of play or how you think the game tends to go. For example, the McCain deck has a card titled "Back To Baghdad," which allows him to gain support in the Defense issue in a single state and then draw another card. A first play or even a quick thumb through the card set makes clear that defense is McCain's dominant issue. But you have to balance your deck so that you aren't totally devoid of choices on the economy side. And vice versa for the Obama player. Once the game begins, each player's choice is to draw a card (you have a beginning hand of three) or play a card. There are 4 states on the board at any one time. When states are won, the winning player gets to decide which of his 10 states to bring out next. There is also a chaos-causing "Breaking News" mechanic that occurs when the new state comes in: you flip over a card with a cute little "ZNN" logo and implement its effect, usually in the just played state. For example, the Obama player could have happily just won New Mexico and decided to put Pennsylvania out as the new state, flip over the ZNN and bark out a curse as "Reverend Wright Resurfaces" causes all undecided voters in the new state to become Red Voters.

So there are a few more twists and turns in the rules, but that's honestly pretty much it. Since you only have the 15 cards in your deck, once you get going--unless you suffer badly from analysis paralysis--the choices should be made pretty quickly, again making for a 30 minute playtime. Another potential roadblock to speedy enjoyment is the player who can't see a picture, say of Sarah Palin or a mention of Afghanistan without treating you to a 30-minute dissertation of their view on the subject--if you're playing with that guy, add two hours to the playtime. Although I think I enjoy Campaign Manager 2008 more than 1960, Mr. or Ms. NPR is less likely to eyerollingly hold forth on Quemoy and Matsu, which is certainly a point for the earlier game.

The so-so depression : I review Mr. Shivers

2010-02-03T22:38:00.001-06:00

My review of Robert Jackson Bennett’s Mr. Shivers appears in the Feb 3rd San Antonio Current.

In Robert Jackson Bennett’s lackluster debut novel, Mr. Shivers, Marcus Connelly rides the rails seeking vengeance for the murder of his daughter. Joining up with similarly driven individuals, Connelly searches Depression-era America for a killer, the mysterious title character recognizable by distinctive facial scars. To further denigrate his already cliché-ridden tale, Bennett adds a fallen preacher, hobos with hearts of gold, a carnival fortune teller, and a corrupt small town sheriff to the mix.

As you probably gathered I didn't think too highly of Mr. Bennet's effort. Though...

Not all of it is terrible. There are flashes on panache as Bennett skillfully produces several exciting action sequences. He even manages to insert a surprise or two in the otherwise largely by-the-numbers story.

Visit the San Antonio Current site to check out what else I had to say about Mr. Shivers.

Graphic Novels for Beginners

2010-02-01T21:33:00.003-06:00

The latest "Nexus Graphica" hearkens back to my "Geeks With Books" days as I provide a guide to which graphic novels a neophyte should attempt first.

While I rank Watchmen among the great sequential works, its success depends heavily on readers who understand the tropes of traditional super-hero comics. Writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons expertly used the well-established storytelling methods of the time (1986). By revitalizing and reinventing the superhero genre, then entering its 50th year, the duo influenced an entire generation of writers, artists, and filmmakers. For a reader new to the form, Watchmen may as well be written in Greek.

The first volume of Neil Gaiman's Sandman (Preludes and Nocturnes) assumes a working knowledge of the long-running DC continuity, and, much like Watchmen, is not a good selection for the novice. The second volume (actually collected first) The Doll's House, works within the series' own mythos, which makes it much more accessible to neophytes.

Maus presents a conundrum for the pretentious "literature crowd." It uses funny animals and illustrations to tell its story, but it won a Pulitzer Prize. Surely the acclaimed Maus cannot be a comic book! Upon its publication, bookstores typically shelved Maus in Judaica rather than with the rest of the graphic novels, which for a time were all kept in humor. Masterfully employing sequential art techniques, Art Spiegleman's extraordinary Holocaust tale provides a perfect gateway for the new comics reader.

I go on to discuss several other graphic novels-- good and bad for new readers-- such as Sin City, Persepolis, Asterios Polyp, Bone, and V for Vendetta.

Check out the whole column at Sf Site.

Kirby designs Julius Caesar

2010-01-17T11:56:00.002-06:00

The Jack Kirby Museum & Research Center recently posted The King's designs from a theater production of Julius Caesar.

In 1969, Sheldon Feldner contacted Marvel Comics, asking if one of Marvel's artists would be interested in designing costumes for a production of William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar by the University Theatre Company at Santa Cruz at the newly-built Cowell College of the University of California at Santa Cruz.

As luck would have it, the Kirby family had recently moved to California, and Stan Lee recommended that Feldner contact Jack Kirby.

The article showcases several examples of Kirby's designs plus more history of the Cowell College play, color photos of the actors in Kirby-designed costumes, and even a .pdf of a piece from a Santa Cruz area newspaper Sunday supplement.

All in all a very interesting overview of Kirby history that I was previously unaware.

(Thanks to Scott Edelman)

Something weird this way comes

2010-01-06T09:20:00.003-06:00

As part of the San Antonio Current's decade recap, I provided an overview of the 21st century's first new literary movement, New Weird.

Early in the aughts, a new creative force emerged. Worldwide political events, crystallized by the 1999 Seattle WTO protests and the terrorist attacks of 9/11, energized a self-aware readership that embraced New Weird, the 21st century’s first major new literary movement. Books such as China Miéville’s Perdido Street Station (2000), Jeff VanderMeer’s City of Saints and Madmen (2001), Paul Di Filippo’s A Year in a Linear City (2002), K. G. Bishop’s The Etched City (2003), and Steph Swainston’s The Year of Our War (2004) birthed a revolutionary, real-world, postmodern literature that often included surreal elements found in urban fantasy, horror, science fiction, and political thrillers.

Of course the earliest New Weird authors began working in the style well before it was acknowledged as a movement. Miéville and VanderMeer, often seen as leaders of the movement, produced works containing New Weird concepts for smaller presses throughout the ’90s. The development of a moniker provided a marketable identity for publishers, which resulted in much larger venues for the work. Both authors’ careers benefited from the increased exposure, much like those later identified with the movement, most notably Jeffrey Ford and Jay Lake.

Check it all out in the current San Antonio Current.

Eerily Reminiscent

2010-01-05T12:37:00.003-06:00

Book People honcho Steve Bercu's comments to the New York Times regarding book theft are eerily reminiscent to something I wrote shortly after being laid off by Book People, where Bercu was my immediate supervisor.

From the December 16, 2009 NYT piece:

At BookPeople in Austin, Tex., the rate of theft has increased to approximately one book per hour. I asked Steve Bercu, BookPeople’s owner, what the most frequently stolen title was.

“The Bible,” he said, without pausing.

Apparently the thieves have not yet read the “Thou shalt not steal” part — or maybe they believe that Bibles don’t need to be paid for. “Some people think the word of God should be free,” Bercu said.

And from my 2002 "Geeks with Books" essay "The Five Finger Discount" (later reprinted in my 2003 book Geek Confidential):

There is a whole other class of bible thief: the one who believes the word of God should be free for all to experience. I want to get these folks bumper stickers that say "The word of God, not just for terrorists anymore." What these fools don't realize is that the price covers paper, binding, the bookstore rent, employees and a zillion other expenses.

(I added the emphasis.)

Perhaps this is just a coincidence. Bercu could have read my piece when I wrote it and the phrasing stuck in his subconscious. I know while I was working there, Bercu was a regular reader of my column. I have no idea if he continued the practice after I left.

Jewish Christmas

2009-12-25T17:47:00.003-06:00

Jews often find Christmas to be one of the most boring days of the year. Almost everything is closed, most of your friends are busy, and TV sucks.

As a child, we engaged in what we called "Jewish Christmas."

I don't mean Chanukkah. Only the uninformed equate the eight day Festival of Lights to Christmas. A relatively minor Jewish holiday, Chanukkah only achieved prominence for its proximity to Christmas.

Chanukkah is not a very important religious holiday. The holiday's religious significance is far less than that of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Passover, and Shavu'ot. It is roughly equivalent to Purim in significance, and you won't find many non-Jews who have even heard of Purim! Chanukkah is not mentioned in Jewish scripture; the story is related in the book of Maccabees, which Jews do not accept as scripture.

From Judaism 101: Chanukkah

For most of my pre-teen years, I'd eat Chinese food with my grandparents, mother, and sister on Christmas and then my mom, sister, and I would head out to the movies. That is a Jewish Christmas!

I don't remember most of the movies except for the magical 1978 Christmas screening of Superman: The Movie. Only a dozen people or so attended the showing!

As I entered my teen years, I started spending Christmas with my gentile friends. Then later with my Christian girlfriends. After I married my first wife, we always spent the holiday with her Catholic family.

After our divorce, I took up the tradition once again with friends.

When I first explained this idea to Brandy, she'd never heard of the concept. All it took was one Jewish Christmas and it became our annual tradition. We may not always eat Chinese food (sometimes fittingly enough Jewish food instead) or see a movie (though we often do), but we always have a fun, relaxing holiday. There is no other way I'd rather spend the day.

(Sadly this year, Brandy developed a stomach bug, so we didn't go out to eat or see a movie. We've promised each other Chinese food --hopefully dim sum-- and a movie before the end of the year.)

That Was The Year That Was 2009, Part Two

2009-12-16T09:56:00.002-06:00

Over at SF Site, Mark London Williams and I conclude the annual countdown of our favorite graphic novels/comics/funny books of the year. We each picked the top ten titles that we encountered over the past year or so. Here's a visual recap of 5-1.

Check out the column for what we said about each selection.

In case you missed it, here's Part One.

A great way to start my day!

2009-12-15T11:15:00.003-06:00

In his Henckels Steak Knives review of King Kong Is Back!, Tim Janson pays special attention to my contribution "Thirty-Three," referring to it as a "great essay."

Rick Klaw's essay "Thirty Three" delves in the colorful history of the two men who brought King Kong to the screen, Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack.These two have a background that you'd think had to be written by Hollywood.Both served during WWII and both aided Poland in their fight for independence with Russia.Cooper was a pilot for the Polish Air Force and was made a squadron commander in 1920.He was shot down and captured by the Russians and held in a prison camp until he escaped along with two Polish prisoners and traversed 500 miles to freedom into Lativa.A remarkable history.

Janson concludes his review with his overall impression of King Kong Is Back!

Some of the essays are a little on the dry side but all in all its wonderfully done and a great book for any King Kong fan.

My review of Avatar

2009-12-12T23:03:00.003-06:00

I reviewed the much-hyped Avatar for Moving Pictures.

Twelve years after crafting the Oscar-winning best picture "Titanic" and nearly two decades since "Terminator 2," director/screenwriter/producer James Cameron returns to the big screen and his science fiction roots with the much ballyhooed "Avatar." Equipped with groundbreaking 3-D and graphics technology, Cameron's nearly three-hour epic emerges as perhaps the most beautiful movie ever produced.

Complete with contrived dialogue and a telegraphed plot, the hackneyed tale derives, almost fully-formed, via the 1950s and the far more compelling fiction of Jack Vance and Robert Heinlein.

No stranger to special effects, Cameron created new advancements in that arena with several of his previous films, including both "Terminators," "The Abyss" and "Titanic." The 3-D and visual effects of "Avatar" far exceed anything previously seen. The extensive trailers fail to properly showcase the extent of the dazzling imagery, and offer only a glimpse of why this feature needs to be seen in the theater. Even with the lengthy running time, due primarily to the visuals, the movie doesn't feel overly long.

Unlike most directors, Cameron, for the most part, uses the 3-D subtly. Realistic sweat dripping of faces enhances the tension. By giving depth, a large ship interior becomes massive. The projection screens used on the ships are fully integrated and interact seamlessly with the crew. Lighter-than-air creatures have depth and mass. All these little touches breathe life into the very alien world of "Avatar."

Stop by Moving Pictures to check out what else I had to say about Avatar.

Still searching for Philip K. Dick

2009-12-02T18:15:00.004-06:00

Recently, I was lucky enough to interview Anne Dick, Philip K. Dick's third wife, about their life together and the recent publication of her revised memoir Search for Philip K. Dick, 1928-1982. The interview appears in this week's Orlando Weekly.

The project itself grew out of a need for answers. “[It] was an attempt to understand what had happened to our relationship at the time of our divorce,” she says. “Actually, writing things down turned out to be therapeutic. In words I could go back and feel more in control during those chaotic times.”

As explored in Search and later books, Philip Dick famously used aspects of his real life in his surreal and often outlandish stories. “He wrote Confessions of a Crap Artist [one of his earliest and perhaps most successful ‘autobiographical non-science fiction mainstream’ works] on our honeymoon! I was stunned and somewhat dismayed, but I didn’t say anything except that I thought it was a good book. Privately I thought to myself, ‘I guess this is what writers do.’ There were a number of other Point Reyes books in which the principal female character is more or less based on me.”

Dick revealed several arguably unflattering aspects of her ex-husband. “Many people know now how eccentric Phil’s life was. Many great writers had strange and unsettling lives.” She explored several of his positive traits as well. “He always tried to help people throughout his life. His books are full of light. I think most people are different and strange way down in their psyches, and in some people their unusual characteristics are closer to the surface.”

After the interview, my brief piece "The essential Philip K. Dick: a beginner’s guide" gives some reading tips for the PKD neophyte.

Check it all out at the Orlando Weekly.

Forthcoming selections

2009-12-01T18:08:00.004-06:00

At our previous meeting (and shame on you for not being there), we determined our selections for the first three months of 2010.

January 13 The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb
February 10 Pandemonium by Daryl Gregory
March 10 Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

For our December 9 meeting, we're discussing Jeff VanderMeer's Finch.

We meet at Flight Path at 7 PM and we'd love to see ya there. Check out our home page for more details about the Dark Forces Book Group.

That Was The Year That Was 2009, Part One

2009-12-01T09:50:00.004-06:00

Over at SF Site, Mark London Williams and I began the annual countdown of our favorite graphic novels/comics/funny books of the year. We each picked the top ten titles that we encountered over the past year or so. Here's a visual recap of 10-6.

Check out the column for what we said about each selection.

Happy Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T09:31:00.002-06:00

I'm thankful for a lot things. Here are a few.

In 2003, I included this dedication in my book Geek Confidential:

For Brandy

You are the sun, the moon, the stars, my everything.

Still holds true some six years later. I'm thankful everyday that Brandy shares her life with me

I'm thankful for my friends and family (well except perhaps my sister, but don't all big brothers say pretty much the same thing?)

I'm thankful for my constant companions and co-workers, Bettie and Kali. They make it easier to get through the day.

I'm particularly thankful for all you that read my occasional natterings on here and other places. Keep on keeping on...

Happy Thanksgiving to those that are celebrating out there!

Just a reminder: My birthday is Dec. 22

2009-11-24T12:16:00.002-06:00

And what I really, really want is the original articulated model of King Kong!

Christie's is offering this beauty as part of a pop culture sale. It's estimated to go for between $168,000 and $252,000 when it is auctioned off today!

Better hurry up and get those bids in!

Thanks to Bill Crider for the heads up.

My review of Pirate Radio

2009-11-12T12:58:00.003-06:00

I reviewed Pirate Radio for Moving Pictures.

Even after rock-'n'-roll achieved a popular zeitgeist in the mid-Sixties, the state-run BBC radio refused to broadcast it in the UK. To circumvent government control of the airwaves, ships hosting pirate radio stations aired the troublesome genre. Millions of Brits tuned in to the illicit entertainment broadcast 'round the clock. Written and directed by Richard Curtis ("Love Actually," "Bridget Jones's Diary," "The Black Adder"), "Pirate Radio," originally released in England as "The Boat That Rocks," relates the humorous, often outlandish tribulations of a fictional offshore station, Radio Rock, and the government's attempt to shut it down.

The loose plot serves as a framework for the soul of the picture: the music. Curtis successfully invokes the buoyancy and fun of Richard Lester's classic musicals "Hard Day's Night" and "Help!" by incorporating more than sixty mostly era-appropriate songs.

Armed with an amazing soundtrack and an impressive collection of players, "Pirate Radio" will put a swing in your step and smile on your lips.

Read the rest of my review at Moving Pictures.

And Here's Mine: A Review of "The Fourth Kind"

2009-11-06T10:30:00.002-06:00

My review of The Fourth Kind is up at Revolution SF, and it isn't pretty.

The aliens are here, and they're abducting unwary individuals in Nome, Alaska. So asserts director Olatunde Osunsanmi's The Fourth Kind, which attempts to take the concept of alien visitation and abduction into the mockumentary territory inhabited by The Blair Witch Project (the first horror movie to stake claim), Cloverfield and the recent Paranormal Activity.

But it has two specific differences: (1) unlike the aforementioned films, The Fourth Kind purports to be based on actual events, backed up by documentary evidence used during the movie itself; and (2) unlike the aforementioned films, it has nothing to recommend it beyond its premise or its dubious assertions.

Read the rest of the trainwreck here.

(Milla Jovovich, looking shocked at my review of her performance.)

My review of The Fourth Kind

2009-11-06T08:39:00.003-06:00

My review of The Fourth Kind is now up at Moving Pictures.

In the 1970s, films and TV shows focusing on paranormal phenomena littered popular media. The majority of this sensationalistic fare - tales of Bigfoot, demons, witchcraft and aliens - depended on shock and supposition, offering little of informative substance. With "The Fourth Kind," Olatunde Osunsanmi returns to the schlock of that era.

The film would be bad enough by itself, but there were also rumors of "The Fourth Kind" being a "Blair Witch." Several online sources report no evidence of a Dr. Abigail Tyler licensed to practice in Alaska and no recorded (or even rumored) alien abductions in Nome earlier this decade. The film's claim that it is based on actual events crumbles under even mild scrutiny.

True or not, the movie leaves you wondering, "What's the point?" As a non-fiction chronicle, it fails to further elucidate the subject. If fiction, the story descends to the level of B-grade science fiction with good film stock and decent acting. None of it really matters since, ultimately, "The Fourth Kind" disappoints on all levels, resulting in a forgettable film of the type that will play on Sy Fy for years to come.

The rest of the review can be read at Moving Pictures.

My review of Finch

2009-11-04T11:38:00.004-06:00

My review of Jeff VanderMeer's latest novel Finch appeared in today's San Antonio Current.

The first two volumes of The Ambergris Cycle, City of Saints & Madmen and Shriek: An Afterword, introduced a fascinating story sequence centered on the city-state Ambergris and its unusual inhabitants and happenings. Typifying the uniqueness of VanderMeer’s world, fungoid creatures of unknown origin, dubbed the gray caps, occupy the city’s extensive underworld catacombs and drive many of the stories. Finch, the third and climactic volume, returns to VanderMeer’s singular creation some 100 years after the events recounted in Shriek.

Finch’s weeklong investigation unveils a seedy underworld littered with revolutionaries, hustlers, femme fatales, and characters from his own questionable past. Cataloging this novel’s strata, twists, and feints will occupy fans and critics for years. All aspects of the story interact with elements of the prior Ambergris adventures, though Finch stands entirely on its own merits; the three books of the cycle can be enjoyed in any order.

As with all of VanderMeer’s works, this layered tale ultimately satisfies as it barrels to a momentous conclusion. If Finch is indeed the final Ambergris story, and I have my doubts that it is, VanderMeer left his creation with an extraordinary novel — one of the finest of his young career — and completed a cycle that encapsulates the very best of the New Weird.

Check out my Baker's Dozen interview with Jeff Vandermeer and the remainder of this review.

Lansdale and Klaw to chat at the Texas Book Festival

2009-10-30T13:29:00.002-05:00

In one of my more difficult assignments, I'm interviewing Joe R. Lansdale at the Texas Book Festival on Saturday, October 31 @ 3:30 in Capitol Extension Room E2.016 of the Texas State Capitol. That's right, I'm having a sit down with one of the top 20 horror writers of all time on Halloween day!

As many of you know (and if you don't, you should), Joe is one chatty fella so I wouldn't expect to hear a lot out of me once he gets going.

If you're at the Festival, be sure and drop by. You won't regret it. I fully expect this to be the kind of happening you won't wanna miss.

Joe engaging in two of his favorite past times: chattin' & signin'

Ubuntu requirements

2009-10-26T12:10:00.003-05:00

Last week, I wrote about my issues with the minimum requirements for Windows 7. Today over at Ubuntu Geek they discuss the requirements for Ubuntu 9.04 that help to illustrate my point.

And for comparison purposes, Windows 7:

Ubuntu 9.10 is due out this week, but requirements should be very similar.

Our Proud Texas Heritage-Halloween edition

2009-10-25T23:08:00.003-05:00

With Halloween coming, I’ve been watching a bunch of classic horror movies, either revisiting ones I’d seen a long time ago (Night of the Living Dead, Creepshow) or movies I should have seen—-Craven’s Last House on the Left, which honestly didn’t do much for me, and Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Not saying anything people don’t already know, Chain Saw builds a sense of dread early on and stays in that creepy groove for its entire running time. I had previously seen and enjoyed the remake, come to discover that everything I liked about the remake was lifted straight from the original (especially the camera whine Hooper uses to such great effect at the beginning of his film). And like Psycho, much of the horror comes from what you think you saw from what you actually do see on screen.

But beyond that, as I watched TCM—and this may well be one of those ideas you get that has long been obvious to everybody else—it occurred to me that here is a movie that in addition to being in the horror section of the video store should be shelved in . . . Texana.
Right next to the McMurtry movies like Hud, The Last Picture Show, and Terms of Endearment or—more pertinently, Richard Linklater’s Slacker and Eagle Penell’s The Whole Shootin’ Match, a classic 1970’s indie that inspired not only Slacker, but supposedly also the creation of the Sundance film festival.
Think about it: Chain Saw was shot on location out and around Bastrop in a specific, backwoods, county farm road, off the interstate Texas that no longer exists, or at least doesn’t exist anywhere near as close to Austin as it did then. It’s worth watching just for the glimpse back to that lost world. Compare it to the remake, which ostensibly is set in Texas, but is really generically “rural.”
So I was already thinking about this notion—while watching Leatherface busily chase after a leather-lunged Marilyn Burns—-and then the end credits roll and I see that Lou Perryman, who actually starred in Shootin’ Match (and sadly was murdered in Austin this year) was on Chain Saw’s crew. On top of that, John Henry Faulk is in the damn thing. If that doesn’t scream Texana, what does? Oh, and in the end (spoiler!) the whole movie is about barbecue. Move over, J. Frank.

Windows 7 from afar

2009-10-22T14:09:00.003-05:00

Apparently the latest Microsoft OS, Windows 7, premiered today. Lifehacker, as their apt to do, offered an overview of the release. What struck me the most were the system requirements.

That is way too much RAM and disk space. I could barely run it on my one year old 64 bit laptop with 2 GB RAM! The bells and whistles aren't cool enough to compel me to upgrade the RAM or buy a new machine.

There are literally thousands of older machines that run perfectly well but have been shelved only because of newer, bloated OSes. The primary reason I gave up years ago on Windows (back when XP first appeared) is that I didn't like the idea of having to buy a new machine just so I can run the latest OS. There is no reason a computer, much like your car or TV, can't run effectively for ten years or more.

My desktop computer is at least five years old (I bought it used three years ago). It runs a 2.3 gigahertz, 32 bit processor with 1 GB RAM. Barring anything catastrophic, I figure to be happily using this machine for another 5 years.

(The monitor for said machine sadly died this morning. According to the sticker on the back, it was manufactured in Oct, 1999!)

I recently configured a 800 32 bit machine with 264 meg of RAM under Xubuntu for a friend of mine. It works just fine. Only complaint he's had is that it sometimes lags when he uses YouTube.

My laptop is the first brand new computer I've ever owned and that was a birthday present.

And people wonder why I am an Open Source devotee?

My Offseason Project

2009-10-19T23:43:00.003-05:00

As the baseball season draws to a close, I've been thinking about what to do with my free time following the World Series. From April through early November, a lot of my time is occupied by baseball. Watching it, reading about it, etc.

Over the past few years, I developed an interest in recycling older tech for a more useful future than landfill. Most of these efforts have centered around Open Source, Linux, and older computers. I've rejuvenated several ten year old computers. These projects often occupied that time. But now I'm ready to up the ante.

My old Palm Vx, while still in fine running condition, has outlived it's present usefulness. Linux can run on such small devices, and so my offseason project is to not only covert the Palm to Linux but make the pda into a functioning e-reader. While I realize it will never match the Kindle or the Sony e-reader, I should be able (in theory) to re-purpose the Palm Vx into an adequate reader. Far better than just tossing it the scrap heap.

While I haven't found a record of anyone actually accomplishing such a conversion (if anyone knows of someone who has, please let me know. I'm not above help), I figure it'll be fun trying.

I'll start in on the project the week after the World Series ends. I'll write periodic posts updating my progress.