Under a Gibbous Moon

Doomed is an amazing movie. It accomplishes what few other movies have ever done. It takes a great premise and pulls it off with such horrible execution that the only way to enjoy it is with a fifth of whiskey. And the television turned off.

Set on a remote island that is so not infested by zombies that it is named after George Romero, a group of ten convicts attempts to survive a trip across the island in order to win there freedom in a game show of THE FUTURE.

I’m a huge fan of low budget Sci-Fi/Horror movies so when I see a movie that looks like a Running Man but with zombies I figure that ought to be pretty fun? Right?

To be fair, let’s break down the movies strong and weak points.

Pros:

• The first cinematic use of a CGI vent on a set wall

Cons:

• Everything else

The movie opens up with ten convicts divided into five color coded teams. These people are so unlikeable that within the first few minutes the blue team gets into a fight and kill each other.

Apparently in THE FUTURE (2020) criminal punishment is to the state where jaywalking will net you twenty-five to life.  Because of this, a mix of mass murderers, prostitutes, and tax evaders are given the opportunity to win their freedom and a $50 million cash prize ($239.78 in todays dollars) if they are the first team to reach the other side of the island.

What their not told, is that the island was the home to a failed, secret government experiment into creating super soldiers that instead (and almost predictably) created zombies. Of course, in the name of keeping this all hush hush, it will all be broadcast on network TV.

Luckily for you, that the convicts are so unsympathetic that when their teams begin to implode and/or get eaten, you don’t care. You don’t even root for the zombies, you just don’t care. The black male character is so painfully, painfully stereotypical I can’t understand why he agreed to do the part (well I’ve got one theory but I’ll get to that later). Then there’s the loud black woman, whiny weak blonde girl and the Asian girl with a katana. The closest thing you have to protagonists are the grey team which consists of a Marine/Soldier (the writers are apparently not aware of the distinction) mass murderer and euthaniast (?) jury tamperer.

The cast may be bad but the story is so broken that it cannot even keep the premise straight. The entire point of the game is to reach the other part of the island to claim the reward and yet the reward is actually in a bunker in the middle of the island (and by bunker, I mean one long hallway with a single room). The freedom that is then promised to them there actually means they have to lug $50 million across the rest of the island while being chased by zombies.

For a zombie movie, there are no worthwhile special effects. All the budget was blown on the CGI island map, screen overlays and the vent. There is virtually no gore in this movie except for disturbingly pornographic showers of blood in the females faces. The zombie makeup consists of painting people gray, green, or some combination thereof.

For any type of movie, the weaponry is completely underutilized. There is a chainsaw and it is never used. NEVER USED! That is a clear violation of Chekhov’s Gun. Almost all of the combat is hand to hand or using firearms to bludgeon zombies.

So, after we uncurl ourselves from the corner, wipe the tears from our eyes, and convince ourselves that life is worth living again, we still must ask ourselves, why was this movie made. I think I know the answer.

Yes, apparently this movie was just an excuse to take some stupid producer’s money and use it for a vacation on Bora Bora.

Recently, my old pair of work out headphones died. I admit it, I have a bad habit of washing them with my workout shorts. So many have died this way.

Anyway.

While poking around for a replacement, I spotted these on Amazon. While they are more expensive than the headphones I usually buy for this purpose, I’ve always wanted a pair of Sennheiser headphones and this was too good of a price to pass up.

The headphone cord is long enough to wear your music player pretty much wherever you want on your person. The ear bud cords are asymmetric and are designed to go behind the head. Some people don’t like this but I prefer it because if I’m wearing headphones, I’m doing something and it helps keep the cord out of my way.

The cables themselves are rubberized to help make them water resistant and the input plug is reinforced for those of us who like to yank the plug out of the music player when we’re done.

The ear buds have an angle too them that helps direct the cord around the earlobe. The ear buds come in three different sizes in order to provide a better fit. They claim that the ear buds will reduce external noise by 30 dB and I found that to be roughly accurate. A pleasant surprise was that there isn’t much in the way of line noise which can be a problem on in ear headphones.

The sound is very good. I think that it is better than the (supposedly) in ear headphones from Bose. The good seal helps bring out nuances in the music that are otherwise easy to miss.

The weight of the cord is a bit much even for the good seal and the included clip is a must to keep the weight off of the ears.

Included for storage is the change purse of THE FUTURE!

This stylish change purse, though made of rubber, is not intended to be water proof and instead of one of those little clasps it is held closed by magnets. It opens up just wide enough to make it a pain to get the headphones in and out and as long as you wrap them securely they don’t get tangled the next time you try to take them out.

Overall, I’d say that they are a great pair of headphones for the price. They won’t give you the same sound as the full cup headphones but with these you can actually go workout with without them falling out or shorting out.

I have been using Ubuntu for a couple of years now and whenever a new version comes out (every six months) I take the plunge and get the latest beta version. I figure the least that I can do is help out by finding bugs and making sure everything gets ironed out by the time the final release date rolls around.

The impending (April 29th) release of Ubuntu 10.4 (codenamed Lucid Lynx) is no exception. For those interested, you can download a fresh iso here or you can upgrade your current install via:

sudo do-release-upgrade -d

Beta Disclaimer: as a beta, this version is not as stable as a full release and will have more bugs. I spent the first half hour or so after install just filling out bug reports.

It’ll open the upgrade manager and notify you of the new release and give you the option to install. It will take quite a while depending upon your connection and computer speed so be warned. Also, because of some semi-major component changes there is a bit of babysitting required for the package swap outs.

After this is all accomplished, Ubuntu will boot up. The first thing that I noticed is that my computer is now fabulous!

The picture came out terrible, but it is something like this. I have no idea why, but it is what it is. Boot time is supposed to have been reduced, but I didn’t really notice it so it must not have been too dramatic.

The desktop has changed and in some pretty dramatic ways. Aside from the new icon scheme the window dressing has changed in a very confusing manner.

Why they would suddenly decide to switch the window buttons to the opposite side is beyond me. It makes things difficult for people who already use Ubuntu and creates another hurdle for people who are trying to switch from Windows.

After Ubuntu’s jump to the cloud in Karmic with Ubuntu One, Lucid is going social with Ubuntu’s broadcast feature. Iti s kind of like an integrated Tweet Deck

It allows you to manage your instant messaging (via Empathy) as well as link into Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr. Seems like an interesting idea but I’m not sure how well it will hold out in functionality against, say, Tweet Deck.

As you can see from the menu, Ubuntu One is now integrated into the OS and is no longer a separate program. This is nice because it streamlines the synchronizing of individual folders to the service as it is now an option in the context menu.

On the subjet of Ubuntu One, this is the first time I have gotten it to work since it was introduced. Which I’m rather happy about. I have it set to automatically back up my Documents and Pictures folder to the cloud. Should make catastrophic hard drive failure a little easier to stomach.

Graphics performance so far seems to be a little below Karmic. Of course I’m running the shitty Intel 940 chipset but the number of GPU crashes is disturbing.

So far it seems to be a very uninteresting update to Ubuntu. This is not surprising with it being a LTS (Long Term Support) release. They’re trying to avoid breaking anything but because of that they aren’t pushing the envelope either.

That being said, I am looking forward to the future beta releases and the final release on April 29th. If you’re using Ubuntu might as well give it a spin and if you’re not you should test drive a live CD, it’ll be worth your while.

Gnome, for those who don’t know, is a Graphical User Interface for Linux. It’s the default GUI that ships with Ubuntu. I’ve used Gnome off and on for several years and for that time it has been reminiscent of Mac OS.

The main task bar runs along the top of the screen with another bar running along the bottom that lists the various windows that you have open. A whole gallery of widgets can also bad added (along with additional bars) to further customize your experience. Gnome also supports multiple virtual desktops which I find to be exceptionally useful to organize all the different programs and windows that I have running at any given time.

Gnome 3, which will come by default with the next version of Ubuntu, is available for testing via the following code:

sudo apt-get install gnome-shell

This will install the proper packages, then restart and run

gnome-shell –replace

This will close out your Gnome 2.x and start Gnome 3. Gnome 3 is a complete overhaul. The first thing that you will notice is that there is no longer a bottom bar. The application menu has been replaced with an Activities menu. When you drop it down there is a menu on the left that has all of you applications and recent documents. On the right, the space is used to display your desktops and thumbnails of all the windows contained within. This screen is now used to switch between running applications (you can also bring up this menu with the Windows key or switch applications with alt-tab as usual). Virtual desktops are no handled more fluidly with a ‘Plus’ button to add more desktops and then each additional desktop having a minus button the remove it.

The system setting have been consolidated under the user menu in the upper right corner. There is also a sidebar option for those who can’t get by without some type of bar on the screen.

Now, for the things I don’t like. Most of these complaints, I believe are do to it not being fully integrated into the distribution. The IM button is gone and there doesn’t seem to be a way to customize the activities button. Of course, this completely different way of organizing your desktops introduces a learning curve to Gnome 3.

I do like it, I wonder if it is such a good idea since it could add yet another hurdle to adoption by Windows based users. I’ve alsoread of graphics instability (though haven’t experienced any) but that is probably due to its relatively early development phase and will hopefully be ironed out by the final release.

The recent document menu, which is something that the Gnome developers are obsessed with, is far too prominent. It takes up almost half of the application menu. While hopefully it will be customizable but I doubt it given that the Gnome developers have been unwilling to even give you the option to turn it off.

Finally, you cannot kill a window from the activities menu without bringing it into focus first. This just adds completely unnecessary step to something that people do very regularly.

In conclusion, I do like Gnome 3. The new interface is slick, much faster, and I see how it can be a dramatic improvement over other GUIs that I have used. It currently has some shortcomings that I hope will be addressed in future releases, particularly with regard to being more customizable.

I have recently come into possession of the Barnes & Noble Nook E-Reader. I have been using it for the last several days and have so far enjoyed using it.

I have never seen a Kindle in person. I have played around with Sony’s E-Reader in the store. As far as I can tell, they all have identical E-Ink screens. It is very sharp and, as advertised, is as easy on the eyes as the printed page.

A surprising thing about it, is that the screen never actually turns “off”. By off, I mean that when you power down the unit, the screen goes blank. Instead, the screen displays a series of images for a “screensaver”. This is because the screen only requires power when the display is changed so the image does not actually use any additional power. Continue reading “The Nook Reviewed” »