More Hobbits in ‘07

Fans of Middle-Earth can look forward to two new Hobbit books this year. There is already some info on it at Amazon’s UK site.
The first book The History of the Hobbit: Mr Baggins v. 1 comes out May 8 ‘07 followed by The History of The Hobbit: Volume II: Return to Bag-End on June 4 ‘07 with a collected edition coming out in September sometime (I’ll assume Sept 21 ‘07 since that will be the 69th anniversary of the original Hobbit release). HERE is a bit of Hobbit info as well.
John Rateliff worked on the books so I think in the end it will have more to do with the Hobbit movie than much else, but hey, it’s Middle-Earth stuff so what can you do.

With a bit of luck I’ll have Children of Hurin done in time to get onto these books. I never would have thought I’d spend the whole year reading Tolkien books, what a hard life.

Anyone else reading COH? What do you think of it? I’m just over half way done it and for the most part it’s pretty good, the old English style is a bit hard going but the point is being understood.

History of Final Fantasy

Is it just me or are the Final Fantasy games the best ones ever made? It’s the reason I get Playstations. Last week I went out and got the PS2 thin version (the silver one) because my first run PS2 isn’t working that great (Sony products only work for three years at best so it wasn’t a surprise) so now I get to play online as well. I came to the conclusion that I wont be getting the PS3 since it’s more about getting Blue-Ray players into peoples houses than making a great gaming system. So now I get to go and play PS1 and PS2 games and as more PS3 games come out the older games get cheaper and online gaming is stll free.
If you haven’t seen the history of FF games check out the video below, it’s pretty good.

The Fog of War

Last night after I got in from work I managed to stay awake long enough to watch most of this documentary on Robert McNamara’s time as (US)SecDef and it was pretty good.
A few things came to mind while watching it (some could have something to do with getting five hours of sleep then going to work for 12 hours, hard to say) First off, do you think Rumsfeild modeled his look and delivery style off this guy? Second is that this looks like it was edited by Edward Scisorhands. Lastly, people really do ignore history at all costs.
So here it is, former SecDef Robert McNamara’s Fog of War.

If your into American political history I recommend James Mann’s Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet I’m just over half way through it and it is such a great book. The thing I like the best about it is that it has hardly anything on kid Bushy Jr, rather its about the people in his Admin that make the decisions like Rummy and Cheney and Wolfowitz.

Cleaning up my bookmarks

I’m cleaning out my “Checkback” bookmarks so I thought I’d post a few here, so here goes.

Wiki-How as some lessons on hacking a Coke machine (Haven’t tried it out so not sure if it works)

The Laboratory for Computational Science & Engineering has some cool videos HERE.

A cool documentary on Parallel Universes
HERE is a great follow up to the doc to read.

HERE Noam Chomsky talks about foreign policy.

Move your mouse around THIS page to get a time lapse on the CN Tower.

Seeing as how it’s the biggest story in Canada (outside of any politics) I thought I’d read up on Robert Pickton and the women of Vancouver he killed.

The Wikipedia co-founder has started a new Wiki site for gamers that should be cool once it gets going.

Recently I figured out how to play Sudoku so I go HERE all the time.

HERE is the “encyclopedia of comics”.

Tired of reading books? Let LibriVox read to you

Forbes asks Can Social News Sites Be Trusted?

Well that seems to be all the good ones (imo!) Hope you enjoy them.

HST 1937-2005

Two years ago today Hunter Stockton Thompson took his own life and in his memory I’m making this post.

Thompson was usually portrayed as an out of control social outlaw.

Where the Buffalo Roam

But at his core Thompson was a sports writer who took the time to give his side of the story.

Hunter was even an inspiration for the Doonesbury comic strip.

Thompson left far to early, but anytime would have been to early. He was a rare breed. I don’t think there will ever be someone like Thompson again, people like Hunter wouldn’t get the air time in this day and age, people who can ask honest questions and more importantly a journalist who tells it like it is.

It was a tragic day when Thompson left us, either it was a conspiracy that took Hunter or it was Hunter dealing with his cancer, but on paper he left in only the way he could and that being on his own terms and his own rules.

I still miss ya doc.

Tweaking FireFox

OK before I get going make sure you have Firefox installed
With that out of the way let me point out that this is only my opinion of useful extensions for FF. I thought I’d make this post after reading a few blogs that also talked about useful extensions but had left out a few that I feel are really good and help to make FF more useful. So without further ado here is my list of FF extensions and how they can be used to make the browser better (imo). Currently I have 32 extensions and 5 themes installed.
I’ll tackle the themes first since that will be a shorter list.

Themes
Noia 2.0 eXtreme: There is a reason this is on the top ten list. By far the richest theme.

macfox2: Mac inspired theme.

iFox Smooth:Kind of like macfox2 in that it’s Mac inspired.

The best theme was BlackJapan but it hasn’t been updated for FF2 yet.

A few notables:
Aluminium Kai 2
Super Mario Bros 3
Cobalt Firefox
Abstract Classic

Extensions
All-In-One Sidebar; This is the best extension, not only can you add any of the following extensions into the sidebar you will almost have no need for the File/Edit/View bar at the top of FF. An example for using on AIO is rather than going to your bookmarks section of the File bar you simply right click on the browser to get the “Customize” option, then drag the bookmarks icon onto the AIO bar. You can add any of the buttons in the customize window to the AIO bar.

Tiny Menu;Now that you don’t need the menu bar (if you got AIO) it’s time to gather all those options into one menu and that’s where TM comes in handy. You can gather all those menus into one drop down menu but you can also customize it to have your bookmarks separate from the rest (or any menu bar item).

2 Pane Bookmarks; Now that your using the AIO to do most of your work in FF why not use the same sidebar to get to your bookmarks? With 2PB you have the top section showing your categories and the lower window shows you what is in those groups.

Ad Block Plus; With more and more people using the Net and less and less people watching TV/commercials companies have started to fill web sites with their ads and Ad Block Plus gets rid of them There is a database already in use to automatically get rid of ads when you go to a site, but you can also right click on anything you don’t want to see and simply block it. It’s great for sites like MySpace.com.

CacheViewer; This one isn’t for everyone. This simply lets you see the files you have cached in your browser and lets you delete/save the files.

Check4Change; Lets say your at Yahoo’s Answers.com and your waiting for a response, rather than having to hit the refresh button simply highlight a line of text and set the refresh rate (15 secs-1 hr but also customizable). That way you can open a new tab and go do something else and not have to worry about going back to manually refresh the Yahoo page.

SnapBack; Snapback is great for people who spend time in forums or other sites that take you deep into the site. When your at the main page of a site you click on the SnapBack and go where you want, when you want to get back to the main page just hit the SB button and your back there. I personally don’t like using the back button so I either use the “open in new tab” from the drop down menu or SB.

Cooliris Previews; Keeping with the “I don’t like the back button” theme CoolirisPreviews is great because you don’t even need to click on a link, instead you just mouse over the link and get a pop up window. The one complaint I have with this extension is that it won’t run flash videos but you can do everything else on a web page without actually having to click on the link.

Right-Click-Link; This one is good because it lets you highlight a link on a page that isn’t an active link and open that link in a new tab (try it yahoo.com)

termBlaster; Have the search power of Google, Yahoo, Dictionary.com, Answers, Ditto, and even the Weather Channel by simply highlighting some text and right clicking it and then selecting your search engine. You will probably never have to type in Google.com (into the address bar that is) and do a search again, just use the right click and get the results in a new tab.

CookieSafe; Allow or deny cookies from any site from your FF task bar (at the bottom).

StumbleUpon; I wish this extension was around when I first started using the net. It’s like a tv remote for FF, sign up and pick your categories and then hit the Stumble button and find sites you never knew where there. *I advise getting this on Friday because once you start time WILL fly by and it will be 4am before you know it, trust me*

CuteMenus-Crystal SVG; This is just eye candy, CMCSVG changes the icons that come with FF.

Splash; More eye candy. Creates a splash screen before FF loads up, there are a few different images you can use on the designers site.

Morning Coffee; Instead of going to all your favorite sites one at a time use MC to load them all up at once. You can set it so that you get your favorite news site to load only during the week and your favorite podcast site to load up on the weekends.

ReminderFox; RF puts a ToDo list and event reminder in your status bar. Includes a calender and a few other things.

Shazou; Basically GoogleMaps crossed with IP information. Find out all the info about a site and a mapped view of where the server is located.

Sage; The best RSS program around.

Well that’s about all for my list, it might seem like your browser will be covered with extensions but if you get the All-In-One side bar most of the extensions can be dragged over to it keeping them out of the way but only one click away.
I mentioned I have 32 extensions but obviously didn’t list all of them since some of them aren’t for the masses (Like Searchbar Autosizer, Tab Effect, Long Titles, ColorZilla, FlashGot, Download Statusbar and JSView etc..) but hopefully enough take make your FireFox more useful and your surfing more enjoyable.

If there are some extensions you think would be helpful leave a responce so others can check them out as well.

Edit: Here is a desktop wallpaper for the real FF fans.

Satuday morning surfing

Another Saturday and three cups of coffee, the results? Some of the sites I found interesting.

HERE is an interesting read about the Lies and Propaganda about the Rebel forces, from Star Wars.

I stumbled across THIS page that lets you add some text to an ever growing page of text by others. It was interesting to read some of the entries, others were just dumb.

If your into outer space HERE a program that lets you stargaze on your computer.

Like most people I try to keep an eye on what is going on in the Middle East, also like most people I know the big media companies are mostly propaganda machines for one party or the other. That’s why I try to read blogs from people living in the countries that are being reported on and recently I came across Kamangir’s site. Subtitled “An Iranian looking at Iran as a foreigner…” It is worth checking out if your looking for a different take on what is being reported.
Also if you want a good book about pre-war Iraq and the build up you should read Salam Pax’s The Baghdad Blog. It’s a collection of articles from his dear_raed.blogspot site. The book is also being made into a film. Though it hasn’t been updated since June 2006 HERE is Salam’s other site.

Finally here is a cool doc about blogging.

Found in the Toolshed

Found these two live shows of Tool over on GoogleVideo. Enjoy.

Live from Fresno ‘06 (1hr 38 min)

Live from Inglewood ‘02 (2hr 43min)

ps. Two random facts;
1-You call him Maynard James Keenan, his mom called him James Hubert Keenan.
2-The line of text in AEnima “see you aunty” if pronounced properly is Cunt.

Maybe one day I’ll make a post about them and their random (useless) facts.

Edit: throwawayyourtv.com has something cooking for Bill Hicks over HERE who owned the voice at the start of Third Eye.
For those who have heard Third Eye you should enjoy the Odeo clip below.

Why I Rent Games

Some people say video games are getting easier while others say they are not, I’m of the opinion they are just getting cheaper. By cheaper I mean the tactics used to make a game harder. Some games seem to ramp the difficulty up once your at the 50% complete range (as I had happen on Need 4 Speed Underground, there is also the “it’s expected” way that your in first place and then two feet from the finish line the second place car flies by you, how?) Other games use the above mentioned cheap tactic that ends up relying on a well timed button mash to win, rather then skill. Then there are games that to me are just to dam big in scale or just ad plot twists so you can go off on another 30 minute mission, but does nothing for the overall story. It’s the cheap tactics in a game that to me kill an otherwise great game, and it’s something that needs to be gotten rid of. Not to say I don’t want a challenge in a game, but sometimes while playing a game it seems like the developers know people will use a cheat guide so they make something so hard (either it’s a hard boss fight or a puzzle that gives you no clues as to how to beat it) that you have to go to a cheat site for some help.

I personally am a big fan of the Final Fantasy styled games (then again, anything Square makes I enjoy) as well as the Front Mission games and even though I have N4SU it still can’t hold up to Gran Turismo. One of the things I like about FF games is that I can make the game as hard as I want it to be, or as easy as I want, it just depends on how much leveling I feel like doing. Of course FF games fall under the “ad plot twists so you can go off on another 30 minute mission, but does nothing for the overall story” section for a lot of people, me included, but not a lot of cheap stuff and that keeps me coming back year after year for the same angst teens saving the world against power hungry corporations. I do have to admit to never finishing FF7 since I have had to restart three times due to a corrupt save file and now the discs are in bad shape and wont play, but at least I seen the tear jerking part (you know the part) but I am replaying part 10 since it is my favorite so far. I tried the Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus game but then got smoked by an endless supply of monsters right out the door (and the controls sucked!), thankfully though I had only rented it, I also have yet to hear anything good about it, so I don’t think I missed anything except Square making money off their biggest game again and again(now that I think about it this game is the exception to my Square idea about liking everything they make).

One of the reasons I have played two of the three (to hit North America) Front Mission games is because to me they are like a game of chess with cool explosions. Part 3 took me almost two years to finish and the same for part four but that was great because I didn’t want to get to the end cause well, Square almost never adds any replay to their games (would it be so hard to at least let people replay a game with their weapons/levels from the first game if only to be able to kick the shit out of the game!?) I have heard mixed opinions on FM5 so that will be a rental first.

Then there are games that are just a big ol’ crap fest like Frogger The Great Quest where sometimes it seems like the top of anything you try to jump up on is covered with oil so you never get to land your jump. I also got super pissed when I got to the last boss on Star Ocean:Till the End of Time and found out (the hard way) I didn’t have enough health potions to even heal myself after it’s first big attack, meaning I got all that way for nothing and probably will never see the ending (at least the cheat guide told me they were all programs within a program) So when you’ve bought as many games as I have only to sell them at a used cd/game store, you learn that renting is not so bad.

When you look at the cost of most new games starting around $59.99 and going as high as $79.99 you have to wonder if your buying a game or stocks in the company but fail to get the earnings. There are games that should only be rented, that is something I feel about a lot of games coming out lately since a lot of them are as inspired as Hollywood movies or just rehashed crap (again, like Hollywood) and I’m sure you know the titles. So between the cost of the game and how some games just tire you out it seems better to pay the $10 at Blockbuster and take it back 40 days later, pay the $2.02 late fee and rent it out again (thus paying $24 for a game) and if you don’t like it you get to drop it off and with a little luck you’ve only wasted $10 and not $60.

Currently I’m stuck on the 7th boss of Shadow of the Colossus also playing EA’s Marvel Nemesis; Rise of the Imperfects I’m doing OK on the first .Hack game and leveling up nicely on FF10.

Nosferatu 1922

And now I give you the 1922 silent movie classic Nosferatu. (A personal fav of mine)

For anyone who still believes the rumors that Max Schreck who played Count Orlok is a real vampire, as it is implied in Merhige’s Shadow of the Vampire should read Max’s Bio.