Dear Microsoft,

Microsoft VBScript runtime error ‘800a0046′
How the hell does that help anyone?

Love,
Brent

2.5 / 5

I saw this movie on the Thursday night 8PM special time that I am sure you saw advertised on TV, not because I wanted to see it that bad, but because that fit with my schedule the best. Of all the summer “blockbusters”, this was higher on my list to see than most.

I absolutely love the first Pirates movie. It was perfect. And while it was a little mythological at times, it always had enough real-world grit to make it plausible. I could suspend reality and I was quite OK with a ghost ship and undead pirates. There was a solid plot and the characters were especially good. You never knew if Jack Sparrow was the bad guy or the good guy.

But as this movie franchise has progressed, the movies have gone from great to mediocre. For me, a lot of it has to do with the amount of plot and character development that is based on the mythology of “Pirates of the unknown location and state somewhere in the space-time continuum”. It reaches the point, where in this third and latest movie, maybe 5% of the screen-time was based in what I would call a real-world setting. This doesn’t give me that chance to use imagination because there is nothing solid to anchor it to. There is no reality to suspend because there is no reality.

Instead of enjoying the movie, I spend most of the 2h 45min trying to learn the mythology of the pirate world, something I have no knowledge of at all. Inevitably, I am frustrated and I begin looking at my watch. This is what causes the story to have that “made-it-up-as-we-went” feel, as though it were written by a team of 2nd graders.

This trilogy suffers from the same problem as “The Matrix”, which is, no matter what anyone says, it was never planned to be a trilogy from the beginning. The first movie was brilliant, and left you satisfied, but also curious. A lot of work was put into making the plot and characters especially good. But movies are not made to be good, they are made to make money. And when the first movie makes a lot of money, prepare for a trilogy. Now the goal is the come up with a plot that can be stretched out of the first movie.

The fundamental problem with the movie industry is sequels and trilogies. There is no need to worry about a good story, as long as the movie breaks a record for ticket sales. So as long as we keep going to sequels (Spiderman 3, Pirates 3, Shrek 3, Garfield 2, another Hannibal Lecter movie..) studios will continue to make them. Not because they are artistically fulfilling, but because they make money.

Ultimately, I did not enjoy Pirates of the Carribean: At World’s End. I suppose I was using my imagination when I hoped I would.

I recently picked up a new lens. This lens, to be precise. Why would I do such a thing?! I will endeavour to explain through a series of stunning examples and undeniable logic. But, in the end I really got it ’cause I was doing some home renovations and wanted to procrastinate working, and somehow managed to convince myself that a new lens would not only speed up the renovations, but help me document my progress in stunning clarity.

I’ve come to realise that a high quality lens makes as much of a difference to the pictures you take as the camera itself. I’m not really going to focus on comparing lens quality here, but it’s worth mentioning ’cause it’s the real motivation in getting a lens that doesn’t zoom.

As I just mentioned, this lens doesn’t zoom - what I mean by that is you can’t adjust how close or far things look. It’s a 50mm lens, so everything looks about 1.5 times closer than it does with your eyes. Well, my eyes, too. The real reason I wanted this lens is it has a wicked F# range, going down to F1.8. The F number really means two things to me - the lower the number, the less light needed to take a picture (at the same shutter speed and ISO setting), and the lower the F number, the shallower depth of field we can shoot.

Let me explain that last bit, as it took me awhile to understand. When you have a shallow depth of field, what that means is that things get out of focus very quickly away from what you’re focused on. Think of a line between the centre of the lens, going through the subject you’re focused on, and continuing off for awhile. A shallow depth of field means that the distance you can travel away from the subject (in either direction) before things appear blurred is very short. Conversely, a large depth of field means that more things are in focus. An image taken with a small depth of field makes the subject look much sharper than a larger depth of field. That F number is something you can control when taking pictures.

For those of you that are still with me - the new lens lets me take pictures in low lighting without worrying too much about camera shake. In general, it means sharper images. It also gives me greater control of how I want the subject to be focused.

The lens that I picked up with my camera is a very good lens and its lowest F number is 3.5 to 4.5, depending on the zoom. It’s best for any of my outdoor shots, because I generally don’t want a shallow depth of field when I’m shooting outdoors, and I usually have quite a bit of light. It’s great to shoot with, but it’s amazing how much fun I can have with a lower F number.

And now for some fun. I took some shots with my camera on a tripod, with all the camera settings the same except the F number. The picture on the left is the F1.8 lens, and the picture on the right is my kit lens with F4.5:

You can click on the images to see bigger versions, if you’re so inclined. You can see a difference in how bright the images are, and the depth of field. Another bonus to the lens is that there is little to no distortion in the image on the corners, which is fairly common in the zoom lenses (especially in low light).

So, by playing with the F number, the more depth of field effects you can create. It’s really easy to do this - all you have to do is set your camera to the Aperture Priority mode (most camera’s mark this as an A on your function wheel), and select the F number you want. In that mode, your camera will adjust your shutter speed for you, so you can focus on the subject and alter the F number until you get the desired effect.

You can control the depth of field in the shot while you’re shooting, and you can control your shutter speed pretty easily - getting a lens like this means that in pretty much whatever situation you’re in, you can take nice sharp images with whatever depth of field you want, and not have to worry about camera shake, or using the flash (which pisses off your subjects). Actually, an unexpected benefit I’ve noticed with this lens is that it’s very light, and very small. For some reason, when you’re taking pics with this lens, people seem to enjoy it more than the huge kit lens. It certainly makes the camera less imposing, anyway.

A great lens really makes a difference in the shots you can take, and I saw that right off the bat. Especially in portrait shots. In fact, this was the first picture I took with the lens. I’ve taken some pictures with this lens that I just wouldn’t have been able to do with my old lens. It’s small (so I don’t smash it on things), lightweight (it’s teensy), and relatively inexpensive ($150).

Now you know. And knowing is half the battle.

I caught Spiderman 3 late last week. I really enjoyed it! I give this movie a 4/5.

It might have been because I was going to see the movie for free. Or because I had heard so many horrible things about it, and was expecting it to be bad. Or because I was supposed to be at work, and I was going to the movie. Or some combination of all those things. But I can honestly say that by the end of the movie, I wasn’t bored to shit.

Some plot points are coming that are apparent from watching the trailers, so be warned.

I was very skeptical about the plot as a whole when I saw they were accusing Sandman as Parker’s Uncle’s killer. I mean, come on, guys - did you come up with that at 3am after being out on an all night binge? I can picture a bunch of people sitting around a table with no idea at all how to tie Sandman emotionally to Parker, so they say - “I got it! HE killed Parker’s Uncle!”. I can imagine stunned silence followed by reluctant acceptance would follow.

Actually, that was done pretty well. It wasn’t anywhere as lame as I thought it would be. Same with throwing in the Hobgoblin, and Venom. I thought it was just going to be a horrid mess of special effects and action, with no real attempt at developing the characters. But, they did an excellent job with all the villains, and Venom is really really cool. Pointed teeth and all!

They definitely lose points on flaunting the American flag so much. When you see the flick, you’ll know what I mean. Give it up, guys. You’ve already set the movie in NYC - leave it at that.

Having Spiderman show up to a parade in his honour to receive a key to the city?! Come on. Spiderman wouldn’t do that. He’s a masked superhero, not a public figure. That whole sequence was off for me. Yeah, I get that they’re showing how he can succumb to fame, and how it’s a bit of a drug - that’s lovely. They could have made the same point without him showing up in the parade. Not to mention how he took off his mask at just about every web-slinging pit break. “Oh! I landed on this lovely roof top overlooking a massive crowd of people surrounded by reporters. I should take off my mask.” I’m thinking the writers missed out a bit on the purpose of said mask.

There were also a few really cheesy scenes in the movie, but not too many. There was some good wit and they did a really nice job of showing how addictive Venom’s powers are. With some laughs spread through the film (especially the French waiter bit thanks to Bruce Campbell), and not as much emotions as I was expecting, the movie holds its own pretty well.

All in all, this is a safe flick to go see if you want to get out to a theatre, but don’t have anything you really want to see. Definitely worth renting if you can wait that long. If you’re a spidey fan … well, you’ve probably seen it already.

I bought a new aquarium! It’s huge. It came with a stand, and I’m going to put a sump in the stand. What this really means is that I will be making some fairly serious modifications to the stand. Since I am modifying it, I thought I might as well make it stronger as it will be holding some 900 pounds of fish, rock and water.

With that preamble out of the way … Tonight I went over to Rona up in the NE, to grab some wood. The big decision for my frame material is fir vs oak. Oak costs 3$ a linear foot, and fir costs 1$. But oak is much stronger. So, after some diliberation, I decide to go with 20 linear feet of the oak. I picked up 2 6 feet boards, and 1 8 foot board. Using powers gained during the aquisition of my math minor, I was able to calculate the approximate cost of this wood to be 60$.

I proceed to the checkout. Each board has a bar code on it, which tells the cashier how much the board costs per linear foot. So, she proceeds to scan all 3, so the cost so far is 9$. She doesn’t like that, so she deletes it all, and does it again. Since 2 of my boards are the same length, she typed 2, then scaned one of the boards, and then scanned the 8 foot board. This gives the total to be 9$ again.

The cashier looks up at me to conclude our business. I tell her that that’s way too low for the wood, and that it should cost about 60 dollars. She says back that she scanned it in properly and I must be wrong ’cause that’s how much it costs, and holds our her hand for the money. I really didn’t feel like explaining what a price in linear feet means to someone working at a store that charges in linear feet.

At this point, I figured that I tried my best (short of talking to her supervisor,) took the deal and went home. Guess I didn’t have to worry so much about the fir vs oak cost … this ended up about half the price of the fir!

Everyday I have a commute to work that last about 1 hour and a commute home of a little more than 1 hour. Not wanting to look odd, I have my white earbuds in just like the rest of the bus/train riders. Having done this commute for 5 days a week the last 8 months means I have put over 320 hours on my iPod. The only question that requires answering: What to listen to?

It used to be music all the time. But I found that even though I have the best musical taste of anyone I know, I got pretty sick of my mixes. I have listen to the new Shins album many times. It’s very good. I loved it until the 23rd time I heard it, and then, it does start to get a little stale, along with the 15 other albums I am listening to currently. All good music, but it’s same everyday. And since my day is pretty repetitive as it is, I needed a change.

Podcasts will give you that freshness you are looking for. They are rarely stale because they are never the same. I would like to give to you a list of podcasts I listen to regularly.

Tech News/Opinion

• Diggnation
  - an absolute must. It’s like hanging out on a couch with your friends
• this WEEK in TECH (aka “twit”)
  - roundtable discussion of whatever is buzzin’
• Buzz Out Loud
  - CNET’s take on tech news
• dl.tv
  - 2 guys with opinions and tips
• NPR: Technology
  - a serious look at tech news

Sports

• ESPN Baseball Today
  - The best baseball podcast available to man (or woman)
• ESPN Radio: The Big Show
  - Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann opinion
• any ESPN podcast
  - no one can touch ESPN for podcast sports coverage. They have a poker podcast!

Music

• NPR: All Songs Considered
  - new music, old music, concerts, always something different. A great way to get exposure to some new music.
• Top Welt
  - low budget punk podcast

News/Opinion/Politics

• MSNBC Countdown with Keith Olbermann
  - Bush bashing with a vocabulary
• Real Time with Bill Maher
  - I hate Bill Maher so much that I listen to his podcast. The guy is a jackass.
• The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos
  - The best thing on CBC by far. George is a real punk.

Other

• The Official LOST Podcast
  - The writers of Lost tease you for 15 min a week.
• The Lost Podcast with Jay and Jack
  - speculation and more speculation
• NPR: Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!
  - fun quiz show about current events