Cafe Bucky

Ah yes, the long-awaited SW III trailer is out and about. At last we see young Anakin Skywalker unleash an orgy of betrayal!

I’ve been reading that SW III is the darkest film of the 6. Let’s hope so. I don’t see how you could show this part of the story in any lighthearted fashion. I’ll be there May 19th, opening day, just as I have been for 5, 6, 1, and 2!

I’m still somewhat new to the world of Flash and ActionScript, but have long since punted on trying to edit within Flash MX 2004. (I went through a BBEdit phase, and am now mildly happy editing my class files in Emacs). If there’s something else that works well on the Mac (code hinting would be good), I’d love to hear about it.

The next thing to punt on is likely Macromedia’s compiler. It’s s-l-o-w. Makes my PowerBook feel like an old tray-loading iMac - on elephant tranquilizers. I’ve been reading about MTASC (Motion-Twin ActionScript 2 Compiler), and it looks to be worth a gander.

What would be cooler is to have an intermediary between a variety of scripting languages, and a .swf file. I notice that there is a little bit of talk about that at GalaxyGoo: Flash8 wishes? Abolish post-colon syntax!. I’d be happy to script PHP or Perl to a .swf target. Even Java would be fun.

But hey, at least ActionScript isn’t Tcl :-) I’m very thankful for that.

I would like to do a cool sidebar of my ongoing media inputs. But since I don’t have that yet, I’ll toss off a few mentions while I am waiting for my boiling ravioli to achieve edible status…

Chasing Amy is a potty-mouthed romp, and a lot of fun. Ben Affleck is great in this one, and I was very charmed by Joey Lauren Adams. Of course now I gotta go back and check out Clerks, Mallrats, Dogma, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (I realize that maybe some of this stuff might suck, but that’s always the risk - that maybe you got exposed to someone’s best work, and that everything after that is a bit of a letdown)

“Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” by Philip K. Dick. The inspiration for Blade Runner. One thing I notice about SciFi is how outdated certain situations have become over time (like going to a payphone). On the other hand, it’s wonderfully futuristic for a book put out in 1968. I keep noticing the differences between book and movie (SF vs LA, for one). The desire for a live animal pet in the book is only hinted at by J.F. Sebastian’s creations in the movie. The best thing about reading the book at this point is that it’s part archeology, part SF, and a good entree into PKD’s works (now I want to read some more of his oeuvre.)

GT4. Best. Driving. Game. (of all time) I’m not much of a gamer, but I used to do many high performance driving schools. This is the closest I can get to being on the track without leaving my house. True story: While going for my Super License on the Seattle track, I misjudged the uphill transitions - my car spun a full 360 without hitting anything - I didn’t panic, and still got a bronze for the lap! I love that they included Suzuka, Sears Point, Circuit de la Sarthe (Le Mans), and, of course, the mighty Nurburgring Nordschleife (btw, back in the real world, the decal on the back of my M3 is the Nurburgring map, which I obtained from the trackside store in 1999 when I went to the European GP - among driving enthusiasts, just being able to go there and stand by the track is a sort of pilgrimage) The sheer variety of cars and tracks is overwhelming, the “feel” is accurate, and it’s truly an immersive experience. Ten Thumbs up.

(or … my little LAMP plug for the day)

Hardly a day goes by where I don’t wonder at the sheer number of things Google gets right. Here’s the latest:
Try “weather new york city”. Or just be lazy: “weather 10024″.

Great stuff. Add this to GMail, google maps, and all of the rest of their services. They fucking get it! I’m also impressed with how they deal with failure (infrastructure). They run tons of cheap linux boxes Can you imagine Google attempting to run off of Windows + IIS? Yuk. The licensing alone for 1000’s of machines would cost big $$.

So I’m just happy for Google on an ongoing basis (and no, I’m not angling for a job there, I’m just a happy user of their services)

You know you’ve been looking at the screen for too long when … you try to clean it, and the “dirt” turns out to be a stray semicolon in an Emacs window…