Is This Old News?
There is a new film by this fellow you most likely know of named, Mike Judge. Perhaps you don't know the name. If not, then saying that he was the creator of Beavis and Butthead, Office Space, and King of the Hill will most likely make you go, "Oh yeah, that guy."
Many people have been moping around, asking the question as to when Judge will make another film. Just about every person I've ever met loves Office Space and reason would dictate that Judge's next film would be great. So, when, when, when?
Well, it was made and released. The name of the film was Idiocracy. Yeah, I know, huh?!! Well, not completely huh, but, wha?!! I had heard about the film some time back and apparently it was finished over a year ago, yet was only released two months ago in seven cities. Given the fact that the content was about a dystopian future where everyone was an idiot consumer, you would have thought that it would have played in San Francisco. Yet no, it didn't. This article goes on to explain much of what happened. One other thing that should be mentioned is that it paints what is currently happening in America in a pretty bad light. Having a film like this come out in wide release right before an election where those reponsible (mostly the Republicans) are looking to lose would have been bad.
Is that a bit of conspiracy thinking? Sure, but look at the facts in that we now have to wait for the DVD release. A release which I might add appears to be in Janaury of next year. They're not even trying to get the Christmas rush with this thing. They want it very, very buried. Maybe this is just brilliant marketing, but having known many, many people in marketing, this kind of thinking is simply not possible. Even if the whle department took a running start and smacked their heads together, they would not be able to pull this off. So, to say that I am going to rent it is an understatement. I might... yes, that's right... buy it.
31 10 2006 0 comments
Tags: film, film, idiocracy, republicans
If I See One More Sexy Nurse...
So, it's Halloween. Good times in San Francisco which happen to be made even longer by the fact that this holiday falls on a Tuesday this year. So, to all those that want to par-tay, you simply start the weekend before to allow for full money's worth of your costume.
I'm all for it. This is a lively town and it's fun to get caught up in the spirit of things. It is pretty bizarre to note how skimpy girls' outfits have gotten. Once again, I'm all for it, but there is a certain lessening of homogeneity that could be approached. Such is the case with the "sexy nurse" outfit. A mainstay of costumes and such events as Bay to Breakers in both male and female versions for some time. It has run its course though. Every third girl is wearing this outfit now. Some guys might be cheering, "Ah yeah baby, show them puppies!" but to those guys, I posit the question, have you not seen that all these girls with the skimpiness, and the cleavage, and the "puppies" hanging out are usually already with some guy?
I would further like to open the topic up for discussion by saying, perhaps some of the old "sexy" outfits could come back, such as "naughty Catholic schoolgirl", "naughty cheerleader" [maybe], "naughty Girl Scout", "sexy French maid", "sexy police chick", and my personal favorite: "tarty Minister of Foreign Industrial Integration". Has it really gotten to the state in society where were have been stranded with just nurses? Is it a reflection and commentary about the state of America becoming a health care economy? Eh... probably not. Some girls just wanna show off, yet don't want to put a lot of thought in to it.
Enjoy your candy!
30 10 2006 0 comments
Tags: costumes, halloween, health care, nurses
Two Blades is Bestest
One problem in sticking to old technology that requires replacement parts is that one day, the parts will be damn near hard to find. I am finding this to be the case since I am a slacker with a two-bladed razor and I refuse to make the switch to >3 blades.
That's not completely true as I did one day a couple years ago try one of those three blade things because I got it sent to me free for some reason. They don't work. They're too tall and hard to maneuver. I went back to the two blade and it's worked fine. It's just that people really only want to sell those damned three blade contraptions now. All the generic makers want to do three blades or whatever. If it keeps up, I'm going to switch to a straight razor and be done with it. No more Gillette. No more Schick. No more nuthin' but the cold hard steel of a blade that can kill which I sharpen on the backs of my dead enemies.
Of course, until that day comes, I'm down with the two blades. Also, I'm down with this Onion razor article that shows how stupid all this business is. God I love the Onion.
29 10 2006 0 comments
Tags: razors
The 1,000 Spam Barrier
GMail is a pretty damn good webmail system. I've been using it for some time and have been quite happy. To have automatic virus scanning is great. To have automatic spam blocking is even better and has been a very useful thing for me to have.
Like any good quasi OCDer, I used to delete all the spam that would collect in my spam folder as soon as it was there. Then, upon realize that they deleted it after 30 days, I just thought, "Screw it. That time could be spent laughing at fat squirrels trying to climb trees." I started letting it collect and it was pretty amazing to see how much spam I would have received had I let it pass through. As it sits currently, there are about 1,010 spam messages sitting in that folder. Yeah, that's right, I get over 1,000 spam emails a month. And this is to an email that isn't listed anywhere. It was brand new about a year ago and this is how much junk hits it a month.
It's proof that you really need some kind of spam filter on your email and also proof that every piece of spam legislation (specifically CAN-SPAM) has been a waste of time and tax dollars. At least we get cutsie names for said programs.
26 10 2006 0 comments
Tags: email, gmail, spam
Dude, I'm a Five
While being a five in real life means that at best, through alcohol you might get to be a seven at a bar, in the web world, it means that you're pretty kick ass. For those who don't know, PageRank (oddly this is a better article than anything on Google) is the system by which Google uses to determine the "worth" of a web page when ranking their searches. They use a great number of other means to rank, but this is the one that probably gets the msot press because people can look it up.
Every so often they update their rankings. This site was a three for the longest time. That's not too shabby, but not particularly amazing. A few days ago, it appears that they did a revision of all the PageRanks and suddenly, this site is a five. That may not seem like much on a one to ten scale, but it's a very sloped scale. For instance, to be a one, I think you just need to have a site people can find, which isn't too hard. To be a ten, you need to have a massive, extremely useful site. Google is a ten and just a few others. The list gets very narrow as you get closer to the top. There's some kind of X and Y squared graph I could do about this, but really, I can't anymore.
So booyah, welcome to the upper half of the web, www.hudin.com and www.hudin.net (also a five now). I've worked damn hard to get here.
25 10 2006 0 comments
Tags: hudin, pagerank
Small Correction
Recently I wrote about running shoes and made a small goof about the fact that all New Balance are made in the US. It actually just turns out that their higher level models are made in the US. The cheaper ones are, like most manufacturers made abroad in places like Asia. So, if you're all about buying the American made stuff, check the label before you buy.
I'd like to thank the Croat-at-large in Berkeley for correcting me. I hate to lead people astray and honestly, the fact that I would lead people when not on a movie set is kinda frightening.
25 10 2006 0 comments
Tags: better buying, new balance, sweatshops
I Now Worship Lily Allen
After reading a post on wwtdd.com about Lily Allen I am now in awe. Much like Brandon says, who writes at What Would Tyler Durden Do?, this girl just makes some flat out sense. Something that you just don't see these days. Naturally, it helps that she's English. They seem to have their crap together in general and if they've had any kind of strife in their life, they're so logical, it would burn Spock's ears.
Top it all off, I actually like her music as well. I don't really know what to call it. It's kinda poppy, but sorta edgy. Probably need to crank it in my 6-4 where my system be at. At least you can hear her accent when she sings. Not like those Milli Vanilli guys. They didn't sound German at all when they sang. So weird.
24 10 2006 0 comments
Tags: music, wwtdd
A Little Math
Yesterday's post made me think about doing some simple math. You see, you take number of Americans who have died in the Iraq Invasion (causualty total) and divide it by the number of days Bush has been in office. You arrive at a number which is about 1.3. Yes, that's right, George W. Bush has, on average, been killing 1.3 Americans a day since being in office.
And this isn't even factoring in the people who died in 9/11 (nearly 3,000) and those who died in Hurricane Katrina (over 1,700) which are both events that happened under Bush's watch and to a large degree have been found to have been preventable.
On a more postive note, I really need to get my hands on one of those shirts that people are wearing which just say, 01-20-09. Or, in simpler terms, the day that Bush is out of office and whomever is elected in 2008 takes office. Honestly, if someone worse than Dubya gets in to office, I'm moving to Buenos Aires. At least I already know it's effed up down there.
23 10 2006 0 comments
Tags: bush, iraq
The November Surprise
I've heard a bit of rumbling about the possibility that Saddam Hussein is to be sentenced (most likely to death) on November 5. This would naturally not be that surprising except of course that our national elections are two days later. The timing of this on a Sunday means it would be the first news item for Monday most likely and would dominate the press all day and in to Tuesday.
Many believe this will influence the elections that are to be held and the natural assumption is that they would swing the elections in favor of the Republicans who stand to lose the House. To this, I say maybe. Those who would be orchestrating this seemingly devious surprise are basing in on what happened when Bin Laden released a tape just before the last presidential elections in 2004, that Bush ultimate won [maybe]. In that instance it was obvious that there was a correlation. This time around, the case might be the same, only in that there is a correlation between these two events. Not that it will tip the scales in the Pubs' favor.
Many Republicans are seeing that the American public at large is pretty damn sick of the war in Iraq. We don't want to hear about it. We want it to be over. And for about half the country (such as yours truly) we wish it never started in the first place. Broadcasting this reminder and blanketing the airwaves with it would go a long way to cover up the recent Foley Scandal, but in my opinion, it would blanket the airwaves with something else that is less than desireable; a reminder that yes, the troops are still in Iraq, still dying, and there appears to be no way out of the situation.
We'll see how this plays out. If Rove and the others behind the scenes know what's good for them, they might stop from doing this, let the House go and work to maintain control of the Senate. Then again, Napoleon Rove seems to be so convinced that he will always get his way and not that fact that his plans have been steadily crumbling on him, he'll probably ignore this and go ahead with anyways. It will be interesting to see. I'm not selling anything, so I've gotten used to disappointment in our current government.
22 10 2006 0 comments
Tags: bush, elections, saddam hussein
Stupid Small Thing
There are times when you forget about basic things. One such instance involves the history of this site. You see, this first started out as www.hudin.net because when I went to go register this name, hudin.com, some turd was squatting on it thinking that the now defunct HUman DIgital Network in Japan was going to want to buy the name. Thankfully, that didn't happen, the registration expired, I got it and now here we are.
Well, I was being kinda stupid since I thought that having hudin.com, hudin.net, and hudin.org was all that I needed and I was king of a dorky ass world. Then it dawned on me that maybe I should register www.michaelhudin.com. I'm sure as hell not famous, but it's one of those that if I ever did get famous, I'd be kicking myself for not registering it when I had the chance.
So there you have it. I'm all registered up and that name doesn't really do anything but point to here, so it's not all that exciting. Just something I knew I should have done forever and ago.
