Confessions of an Undercover Geek

On Friday night, I finally got a chance to see Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of H.G. Well’s science fiction novel War of the Worlds. I have to preface my comments saying that I haven’t read the book but I have read about the book.

The part of the story that I found really interesting was the relevance to the terrorist threats that we are having in our country today. The whole idea that we have enemies planted among us, that we are unaware of. They could strike at any time. Plus the special effects in the movie were pretty out of this world.

Tom Cruise did a really great job being the jerk, divorced, father of two, who didn’t seem to care about his kids. I wonder if he had to do much research on this or if this was an image of his real life?

The script seemed to have some holes. In the movie Tom Cruise goes from being a jerk father to a NYC hero. I don’t know how realistic that would be. Also in the story, Tom Cruise’s son leaves to go fight with the military against the martians. Miraculously his son is back at home with his mother safe and sound in Boston. The movie doesn’t really connect the dots with how he got back there.

Rating - 6/10. I would say the movie is worth seeing.

There are a few really good podcasts that I have been listening to lately. I have been using iTunes 4.9’s podcast support. I am sure there are better programs but iTunes is just convienent.

• The MacCast by Adam Christianson
• This Week In Tech with Leo Laporte
• Cinecast with Adam Kempenaar and Sam Hallgren
• One Minute Tip hosted by John Chambers

You guys listen to podcasts at all? If so, which ones?

Rumor is that George W. Bush is going to appoint John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations during the Congressional recess. I think that would be awesome. The United Nations gets NOTHING accomplished. The United States foots a lot of the bill for the United Nations and we don’t get a lot out of it.

It’d be awesome if the Bush administration could use the Bolton nomination as a conduit to a national discussion about the productivity of the United Nations.

Plus I can’t lie, I’d enjoy seeing the liberal democrats squirm a little bit.

My co-worker Matt showed me this comic from PVP. It asks the question about Hillary Clinton starting making a deal about of Grand Theft Auto’s Hot Coffee sex mod coming out.

Did she not think it was Grand Theft Auto was violent before hand?

This is something I have written about in the past.

I found this cool photo essay on a day in the life of the Adobe Photoshop CS2 Team. The amount of access that the photographer got is pretty awesome.

There is something about corporate life that has always fascianted me. Maybe I will have the oppurtunity to work for some big corporation some day.

The game that has become incredibly popular with my co-workers is, Kitty Cannon. If your bored and enjoy shooting kitties out of cannons. Play this game. It is a great way to kill 20 minutes.

Micosoft is gearing up for the beta releases of Internet Explorer 7 and Windows Vista, formerly named Longhorn.

With IE 7, I am anxious to hear if it will live it up what the IE guys are talking about. Are they going to be come through with a better CSS implementation? Web developers all throughout the world are waiting with baited breath.

Windows Vista should be interesting as well. We have all had to wait sooooooo long for this. I think this new operating system is going to have to be great or it will be just like Windows Millenium, lots of hype with no delivery. Now that I am a Mac Geek again, I am anxious to see how much Windows Vista will be similar to Mac OS X Tiger.

According to Robert Scoble, Microsoft had quite the little release party for the betas of IE and Windows Vista.

Microsoft VP of Windows talked with CNET in an interesting interview.

I spent the last 4 days taking a lil time off. Our family went to my cousin Jim’s wedding up in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. We went over on the car ferry across Lake Michigan. Instead of taking the same way back, we decided to get a little adverturous. We went up through the upper peninsula of Michigan and then came back down across the Mackinac Bridge.

It gave me some time to catch up on some reading. I had started the book 1776 by David McCullough and I finally finished it. Now I am reading the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy books. Alex, my girlfriend, gave me the big book with all 6 novels in it for my birthday.

Tomorrow I am back to work. I am sure I will be doing more blogging to catch up for my few days off.

Today my dad and I mailed in our applications, audition tape, and proof of passport applications into the producers for Amazing Race. We want to be on Amazing Race 9.

It was funny when we were at the post office getting our passports, the ladies who took our passport photos wrote our names down so they could remember us if we made it onto the show.

What a thrill it would be to get selected! Now I just have to wait and see if we get a call back.

Hillary Clinton, her highness of moral excellence, announced today that she is going to be sponsoring legislation that will toughen the penalty for those who sell mature video games to minors. This is in response to the recent revelation of a mod to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, called Hot Coffee, which is a mini game containing explicit sex scenes. I think Hillary Clinton has it all wrong on this issue.

Hillary Clinton thinks that the answer to children playing Grand Theft Auto and a whole lot of other violent video games is to pass another piece of legislation. Minors have had no problems getting the game in the past why does she think that a stiffer monetary penalty is going to be much of a deterrant. If i had to guess, I bet she could care less about violent video games. She is using this oppurtunity to pander towards conservative groups to prepare for her run for the White House in 2008.

Why did she make an issue of Grand Theft Auto now? Why didn’t she make an issue of the game when it was released? Did Hillary Clinton think the game was perfectly harmless before the game mod came out? (more…)