Ebert spent all those years on TV, and he also recorded four or five DVD commentaries in crystal-clear digital audio. The average English-speaking person will use about two thousand different words over the course of a given day. CereProc is mining Ebert’s TV tapes and DVD commentaries for those words, and the words it cannot find, it will piece together syllable by syllable. When CereProc finishes its work, Roger Ebert won’t sound exactly like Roger Ebert again, but he will sound more like him than Alex does.

Technology at its best.

I like Apolo Ohno, but has there ever been an athlete appearing happier and being celebrated by the media for bronze medals? On the other side there’s Michael Phelps, who I’m not fond of as a person, but a single bronze a couple years ago would have been a failure. Michelle Kwan, AKA me and Dan’s Olympic hero, is essentially Dan Marino on ice because of her bronze and silver medals. In Olympic finals, Apolo Ohno has been the first to cross the finish line only once. But I guess that goes with the laid back nature that people (including me) enjoy.

“It’s probably one of the least understood cuisines,” says Rodelio Aglibot, a Filipino chef who was the executive chef at Koi before opening the now-shuttered Yi Cuisine, perhaps the only upscale Filipino restaurant Los Angeles has had. “Are we Pacific Islanders? Are we Asians? There isn’t, like, a defined identity,” says Aglibot, who is now chef-partner of Sunda in Chicago.

I eat at restaurants typically to eat food that tastes better than I can get at home. It’d be kind of cool to have that option with Filipino food. Though I admit I don’t get cravings for Filipino dishes the way I get cravings for, say, teriyaki or tacos.

Just as the town clock strikes two, the mayor steps up to the podium and begins to read. It’s the same story every year. He tells of the history of Panem, the country that rose up out of the ashes of a place that was once called North America. He lists the disasters, the droughts, the storms, the fires, the encroaching seas that swallowed up so much of the land, the brutal war for what little sustenance remained. The result was Panem, a shining Capitol ringed by thirteen districts, which brought peace and prosperity to its citizens. Then came the Dark Days, the uprising of the districts against the Capitol. Twelve were defeated, the thirteenth obliterated. The Treaty of Treason gave us the new laws to guarantee peace and,as our yearly reminder that the Dark Days must never be repeated, it gave us the Hunger Games.

The rules of the Hunger Games are simple. In punishment for the uprising, each of the twelve districts must provide one girl and one boy, called tributes, to participate. The twenty-four tributes will be imprisoned in a vast outdoor arena that could hold anything from a burning desert to a frozen wasteland. Over a period of several weeks,the competitors must fight to the death. The last tribute standing wins.

Quick notes on the other things. Team scoring experience can change but I couldn’t care less about experience points. Grenade launchers can get annoying but I’ve never felt it was to the point of unfairness. Bigotry, racism, and general anger don’t bother me. I don’t think most people actually believe the things they say—that’s just dumb people saying dumb things. If I’m wrong about that, we’ve got a lot of kids with true hate in their harts. But again, I don’ think I’m wrong. It’s really easy to mute people anyway. And dropping out of a game without a dedicated server is expected once in a while. Drops that aren’t related to the host leaving can be annoying, but that seems to happen only about once a week.

I’d like to be able to create a public lobby with friends so that we could be on opposing teams. Yes, teamwork is fun. But yes, going against your friends is also fun. It’s one of the reasons I loved Counter-Strike and Starcraft. And if we have, say, 7 people in a group, I’d much rather separate into a group of 4 and a group of 3 and have strangers fill in the other 5 spots in a 12-player match instead of playing ground war.

(Thanks for the link Junior.)

There began not just one love story for the ages but two: Savage and Liz’s, of course, but also the love between Elizabeth and the WWF audience, as every male between the ages of 5 and 75 fell head over heels for this woman — or, at least, for the idea of her. We had been talked into it.

Me included! Bill Simmons, in a podcast I think, mentioned something I could completely relate to: as a dumb kid he thought Miss Elizabeth was the pinnacle of elegance with Princess Di and Jackie Kennedy tied for second. We owned the Summer Slam ‘91 tape which had the Match Made in Heaven—the Randy Savage & Miss Elizabeth wedding—and of course the Match Made in Hell—Hulk Hogan & Ultimate Warrior vs. Sgt. Slaughter and some Iranians. Two things stick out from that tape: Hogan in a Camel Clutch and the recap before the wedding of Randy Savage proposing. “Eliza-bett. Eliza-bett.” Crowd cheers. “Will youuu marry ME?”

And she replies, “Oooooooooh yyyyeaaaaah!”

P.S. You’d think that clip would be on YouTube with a label containing some form of the word “proposal” but it’s not. I found it though: Randy Savage Pops the Question . And my memory served me correctly for once. There are two other things I love, the first is Bobby Hennan yelling “Get down on your knee!” then Gorilla Monsoon screaming “YES!”. The second thing I love is that Macho Man and Miss Elizabeth look genuinely nervous during her reply.

When Munster hosted the All Blacks at Thomond Park in November 2008, the four New Zealand players in the Munster team performed their own haka prior to the All Blacks.

Watch the video of the Munster Haka. Listen to how loud the stadium is. Remember that Munster is hosting, then pay attention to the silence as the All Blacks step forward and do theirs. And after all that, just search for “All Blacks Haka” and watch a bunch of them—the best are when the other teams challenge them and stand their ground a few feet away from the chanting All Blacks while the crowd goes nuts.

I knew going in that a lot of the article would be about my surgeries and their aftermath. Let’s face it. Esquire wouldn’t have assigned an article if I were still in good health. Their cover line was the hook: Roger Ebert’s Last Words. A good head. Whoever wrote that knew what they were doing. I was a little surprised at the detail the article went into about the nature and extent of my wounds and the realities of my appearance, but what the hell. It was true. I didn’t need polite fictions.

Now that I think about it, Roger Ebert is one of the first writers whose name I was familiar with as a kid, and of course it was from hearing the two thumbs up line so often. But as I got older, his movie reviews always held extra weight for me.

Then the magic happens—Bona sprinkles a layer of brown sugar on top and whips out the flame saber. The smell of the just-charred crackly top is just as satisfying as the tap-tap-tap ritual (performed with their compostable corn-based spoons, naturally). Then you dig down and get the perfectly-cooked grains.

I love oatmeal and I love creme brulee. I really really need to try this.

Answer: YES

0:27 – Definitely didn’t remember this girl!
0:31 – Usher looking directly the camera and doing an eyebrow raise.
0:50 – Fabulous hip extensions.
1:36 – This outfit killed me.
1:46 – Usher’s girlfriend gets kidnapped by thugs. At this point I start to think I’ve never actually seen the video, because I don’t remember it being like one of the old R. Kelly videos with an action movie storyline.
2:18 – Usher walking down the hallway with an eyepatch. Not really sure why he has an eyepatch, because it seemed OK in the police station scene.
2:52 – Oops pow surprise! This is when I started thinking about writing about the video.
3:12 – This is when I knew it’d be worth writing about.
3:47 – CRT Monitors make a 1997 videos look like it’s from the 80s.

First, visit The Setup, a site with interviews with prominent web people focused on their work setups. There are a bunch of forum threads and Flickr pools that have people sharing their computer setups. These don’t get old to me. I’m at the opposite end of prominent, so I decided to share my setup here.

What hardware do you use?

I do everything on a 13” unibody MacBook. It’s the late 2008 version (non-pro) that I recently upgraded to 4GB of RAM and a30GB OCZ Agility SSD. For what I do day-to-day, it flies. I don’t play computer games anymore, but I’ll probably upgrade for Starcraft II.

After Snow Leopard, there was about 20GB remaining, so I couldn’t do without my external drives: a 1TB Western Digital Elements, 250GB My Book, and a 500GB Time Capsule shared with my brother.

More than 90% of the time, I run the MacBook attached to a 24” HP LP2475w. It’s my most recent purchase so I’m still getting used to the 1920×1200 resolution. I’ve been alternating between running my laptop with the lid closed or open for the second monitor, but I don’t have a preference right now.

I’ve been trying out the newer Apple wireless keyboard without the number pad. I don’t miss the number pad but I’m not used to having the function key still in the bottom left corner. And I don’t really like chiclet keys when working on a desk. I definitely like having to move my right hand a shorter distance to grab the mouse.

My main camera is a Nikon D90. I have the 18-105mm kit lens and have had a 50mm/f1.8 for about the same amount of time. Recently I got a 35mm/f1.8. 35mm and 50mm are close enough in length that I’ll try to sell the 50mm and buy an 85mm/f1.8.

I use a 3rd-generation 4GB iPod Nano and would probably still be using my 1st-generation Nano if the screen didn’t crack in half. I loved that design. And I use a BlackBerry 9700. I’ve written about it at length and stand by the gist of what I wrote before—I love how it handles messaging, but the browsing experience is atrocious and not worth the tradeoff for me. Even with a WebKit browser in the works, I’ll probably jump ship by the end of the year.

My desk is an IKEA Jerker. People that see the setup in person say the desk is set low, and it is—the top is set to the height of most keyboard trays. During my internship at IBM my wrists were sore once in a while so I became interested in ergonomics and prefer my keyboard low.

And what software?

Chrome is my main browser. I use Firefox to watch things on Hulu and Netflix. Adium handles all of my IMing, but I rarely IM these days. iChat gets opened about every two weeks for video chatting. I use TextMate for development. I know that TextMate is much more powerful than a typical text editor, but I haven’t learned how to use it that way. CSS Edit is still in its trial period, but I’m really liking the live view. Transmit handles file transfers—droplets are fantastic. I’m trying to use WriteRoom more to write content.

I use Picasa because it preserves file directories instead of consolidating everything in a database like iPhoto. I tried Lightroom and Aperture trials when I first got the MacBook, but browsing photos just seemed slow (no doubt my system was to blame and not the programs). I’ve never felt restricted using Picasa and Photoshop, but efficiency with that workflow isn’t really something to write home about. VLC plays everything. I barely know how to use iMovie, but it’s what i use for video editing.

I recently started using Quicksilver. Just like with TextMate, I’m not a power user. However, I think learning the ins and outs of TextMate would be far more valuable than learning Quicksilver in depth.

What would be your dream setup?

Obviously, limitless speed and memory for computer hardware is one of the first things that come to mind. I was going to say wireless hard drives, but the externals wouldn’t be necessary at all if I was granted the wish of the previous sentence. It’d be nice to have my laptop dock wirelessly. Ejecting my drives and unplugging the laptop takes less than 10 seconds, but it’s still a chore. I used a Lenovo T42 at my IBM internship and the docking station experience was awesome.

Maybe another monitor. Some people feel like they’re more productive with a larger monitor compared to having more monitors. I’d definitely like to try having two 24″ monitors and also try having a 30″ monitor to compare.

My camera could be set to ridiculously high ISO settings without additional noise. And it’d fit in a pocket while still having the SLR image quality and depth of field control. Oh yeah, it’s a dream setup: make that camera I’m describing a phone also.

Would I recommend the ride? Probably once. It goes from scary to exhilerating to frightening. Actually, giving it a little more thought, I’d change “probably once” to “definitely once”. There aren’t a lot of ways to have nothing but 900 feet of air between you and the ground.

Back in high school, probably in 10th grade,
someone posted a tutorial explaining how
to tie a shirt around your head to look like
a ninja. Shortly after, I would frequently
tie a shirt around my head to look like a
ninja. And some of my friends did the
same thing.

Not really the most interesting thing in the world,
but at least it lead to a few pictures like this. And
it probably lead to Neighborhood Ninjas and
Neighborhood Ninjas II. Perfect for a video blog.
If only we had the foresight. 

After installing the hard drive, I tried to install OS X. I couldn’t find the discsthat came with my laptop so I borrowed Junior’s. After making the usual disc reading noises for an unusual amount of time, I was presented with a message saying the OS couldn’t be installed on my system. Cool. Turns out the discs are locked to the specific configuration that they came with. Which makes total sense. (I re-read that sentence and it comes off as sarcastic. I really believe it makes sense.)

Originally I planned to get the lowest end 27″ iMac. Compared to my MacBook, I’d be going from a 2.2GHz dual-core CPU to a 3.06GHz dual-core CPU, 2GB of RAM to 4GB of RAM, and shared video to dedicated video. But I’d lose the SSD. (Yes, you can upgrade iMac hard drives. No, I’m not comfortable using suction cups to pull the glass panel and screen off of a machine that has display issues possibly related to factory assembly.) Losing the snappiness from the SSD would balance out everything gained by updating.

I dragged my mom to the Navy Exchange to get Snow Leopard. (Saving $3 on tax wasn’t the issue; no other store in Oak Harbor would have Apple products.) They happen to carry the 27″ iMac. So I finally saw one in person. For some reason I was expecting the size to be sort of overwhelming (like when I first saw a 30″ display in an Apple Store), but it didn’t exactly dwarf the 24″ display next to it. Still, it’s gorgeous. And I did the math on the tax savings, and $170 saved is a lot more than the $3 for OS X. I stared at it for a few minutes and imagined it on my desk just looking huge next to things like my stapler and pen holder. Then the screen flickered and I remembered why I wasn’t asking my mom the specifics of home layaway.

I got the disc, installed OS X and a bunch of applications and then tried launching them to see what all this was for. I wasn’t disappointed. Responsiveness is the term I saw a lot reading about SSDs. Boot speed and program launching are where it’s most noticeable. But I restart probably twice a month so that doesn’t matter. But I open up different programs all the time, and most things open up instantly while some take a bounce or two to open.

Originally I planned to get the lowest end 27″ iMac. Compared to my MacBook, I’d be going from a 2.2GHz dual-core CPU to a 3.06GHz dual-core CPU, 2GB of RAM to 4GB of RAM, and shared video to dedicated video. But I’d lose the SSD. (Yes, you can upgrade iMac hard drives. No, I’m not comfortable using suction cups to pull the glass panel and screen off of a machine that has display issues possibly related to factory assembly.) Losing the snappiness from the SSD would balance out everything gained by updating.

As for the snappiness I’m talking about, here’s some before and after video of my system. A fresh OS X install helps. And so does going from Leopard to Snow Leopard. But you’ll have to trust me when I say that the SSD is doing the heavy lifting. I’m sold. SSDs have come a long way from being $999 MacBook Air options. If saving 9 seconds when opening Photoshop sounds boring to you, check your address bar man—welcome to boringperson.com.

(I intended for this to be about my new SSD but then it turned into me talking myself into my decision to not get an iMac. Another bonus: I won’t need a $150 converter to connect my Xbox 360 to the display [http://www.atlona.com/Atlona-DVI-to-Mini-DisplayPort-Converter-p-17859.html].)

About halfway through it I was thinking that a lot of the story seemed sort of real and then looked it up and found out that it’s based on a real expedition that was sort of a big deal in the 1800s. I didn’t want to spoil it for myself so I stopped reading things online about it. But after I finished I consumed a bunch of book reviews and then browsed some historical articles. Anyway, I stumbled upon a forum of apparently sophisticated people (think: the exact opposite of YouTube commenters) sharing actual coherent thoughts online. And none of them shared the experience of not knowing it was based on a true story. I’m basically that guy that was surprised by the ending of The Perfect Storm. Never going back to that message board.

But as I said, I bought the book a couple years ago and never read more than a paragraph of it until a couple of months ago if I remember correctly. My brother Dan said it was one of the best books he’s read and I remember him staying up pretty late to finish it months ago. And he’s right, it’s really really good. It’s only based on a true story, so like Steven Conrad taking The Pursuit of Happyness and making the slight change of Chris Gardner’s son from a toddler to a five-year-old, Dan Simmons took similar liberty and threw in a hyperintelligent monster polar bear.

And it all works. Eventually you realize the terror isn’t any one thing, it’s everything involved in the expedition that’s trying to kill the sailors: bears, cold, starvation, Eskimos, scurvy, etc. And the most interesting parts are the descriptions of day to day life. Dreary. And cold. For instance, don’t take your gloves off and touch your gun barrel or it’s goodbye skin and chunks of flesh.

My favorite thing about the four Dan Simmons novels I read previously was that he was able to create intricate worlds and tie timelines and different perspectives together. It really blew my mind that one person could think of it all and make anything cohesive out of it. This book has the multiple timelines and character perspectives. But the difference, as mentioned earlier, is that it’s set on Earth and based on reality. You can literally take any sailor’s name out of the book and find it on a real list from the actual expedition, with things matching like age and rank. And the major characters bring up a whole lot of results on Google. Even better, you can do a Google image search and find images of some of their mummified bodies. Dan Simmons weaves it all together and fills the seams in creatively. Great read.

I was grocery shopping when I noticed this. Spoiler alert: a girl is hopping on one leg. I think she broke her ankle or something, but she had a cast on and couldn’t put weight on one of her legs. But her mom was making her push the cart so she couldn’t use her crutches. And I sort of just got my BB 9700 so I was trying to take video of everything.