blueZhift Blog

I’m a bad man. My lovely wife thought I was working late, instead I was watching Speed Racer at the movies and enjoying every minute of it!^_^ I grew up watching Speed Racer, and this movie perfectly captures the flavor of that experience. It just feels right and well worth the $10.50 I paid to get in, and the accusing frown I got from my wife when I got home! Definitely a baaaaad man!

As the price of gasoline has crossed $4/gallon, there are signs that Americans are changing their habits. SUV sales have plummeted, hybrids and smaller cars are in great demand, and people are beginning to drive less. With this we may well see the end of the American obesity epidemic because a lot of people are going to be doing a lot more walking. They’ll be walking to work or walking to catch the bus or train to work. And a lot of short errands are probably going to be handled by kids on bikes!

Nobody likes high fuel prices and the ripple of higher prices they cause across the economy. But who knows, if people really do slim down, maybe we, as a nation, will get it all back in the lower health costs associated with a healthier populace. And with smaller sized people, maybe we won’t need those giant SUVs anymore!

To some, it may be unthinkable, but an Obama-Clinton ticket is beginning to look like the only way for the Democrats to assure themselves of victory in the fall over McCain. The bottom line seems to be that Barrack Obama is not going to win over the voters who have supported Clinton but will not support him because he’s black. I’ve read much about how Obama needs a message to that resonates with the blue collar voter or the older voter. Well, pardon my French, but those are just euphemisms for white voters who aren’t going to support a black man no matter how smart, well spoken, or capable he is. Unless Obama’s new message involves him becoming a white man and simultaneously erasing any memory of his ever being black from the minds of voters, he will not pick up this support. That is unless he takes on Hillary Clinton as his running mate.

With Clinton as his running mate, he will have her onboard 100% to make a strong pitch to the people who supported her to support them both in the general election. Some of these people will still defect, but I’m guessing that most will not. I don’t know if Obama and Clinton like each other much personally at all. But if they want the White House back, they’d better work together. Clinton supporters aren’t going to buy it if she isn’t on the ticket.

Outlaw Star was the first complete anime series I bought on AMV and still remains one of my favorites. I finished the Outlaw Hearts AMV just in time for the Anime Central AMV Contest, but with nearly 140 other entries competing for a spot in the finals, the odds are kind of long. Still, I have a lot of fun entering, and hopefully raising my skill level. I had to change to Sony Vegas Pro 8.0 late in the project because Magix Movie Edit 11 refused to export properly. So I had the usual drama getting a project done. I think the results were worth it though. I love the song and it goes well with the story from the anime, imho. Oddly enough, after a year of making AMVs, this is the first one I’ve made that used a song in English which turned out to be more of challenge than I thought it would be!;_-

I suppose it should have been expected, but it seems that the swift boating of Barrack Obama has begun in earnest. Just as more public musings about why Obama has been unable to “close the deal” on the nomination began to turn to the question of race, this whole meaningless Reverend Wright controversy has been resurrected. The simple fact is that there are a significant portion of voters who will not vote for Obama simply because he is black. But even racists don’t want to be known as racists, so they lie to the pollsters. The fact that they lie underscores the fact that they feel that their viewpoint is wrong. Wrong or not, though, they refuse to change.

Now they can proudly not vote for Obama for the Wright reason. They can self righteously claim that Wright’s views are extremist and that Obama’s association with Wright, regardless of what Obama says about it, makes him an unsuitable choice for President of the United States. Their consciences can now rest easy thanks to a media that lives and profits on controversy, a political power structure that got scared that a black man might actually win and change things, and an American public that has yet to deal with still existent racism.

For the record, I heard what Wright said. I like him, and he speaks truth to power, and of course, the power doesn’t like it. I’m still voting Obama if he gets the nomination. And if Wright were running, I’d vote for him too.

Sony is delaying Home for Playstation 3 yet again. Eh, just as well, just means I won’t be buying a PS3 any time soon. While Home is not what one might think of as a killer app, especially with established virtual worlds like Second Life and There already available, it is a for me a sufficiently compelling reason to consider completing my set of current generation game consoles. I really want to see Sony succeed in creating a compelling and easy to use virtual world, something as immersive and engaging as The World of .hack fame. Second Life is inching closer, but having to run on the PC may ultimately be slowing down their progress as the client has to accomodate a wide variety of configurations. I can only hope that the Xbox 360 will eventually get in on some of this virtual world action.

I saw my first pink haired guy on the street a few days ago and it actually looked good on him!^^ In addition to pink, I’ve seen deep cherry reds, blues, and greens. And I’ve also seen a guy with a blonde streaked mohawk wearing denim and leather. One of the nice things about this rainbow of hair colors is that the ladies and gentlemen really looked good that way. Bravo!

The so called ‘D.C. Madam’ was found guilty on all counts of running a prostitution ring. Perhaps this comes as no surprise, but the thing that really rankled me was part of the prosecutor’s closing remarks.

“When a man agrees to pay $250 for 90 minutes with a woman, what do most men expect in that time?” prosecutor Daniel Butler asked during closing arguments Monday. “In that context, it’s pretty clear. Most men want sex.”

Now I know there are plenty of men out there who can easily spend that much money on a woman for a regular date. A nice restaurant, dancing, movie or show can add up quickly. But despite that, the woman is not obligated to have sex with him. I know that a lot of women certainly feel pressure to do so, and plenty of men feel that they are damned well entitled. So it really bothers me that the prosecutor has basically taken this and declared it as a universal fact in supporting his case. So careful ladies, if a guy spends a lot of money on your date, you just became a ho.

While I haven’t become a Jimmy Johson fan after his stunning gas mileage win in yesterday’s Subway 500 at Phoenix, I am definitely a Chad Knaus fan! Jimmy is talented, but Chad and his crew are showing why they have back to back Cup championships and are a legitimate threat for a third one. They’re on their game and have shown that they can improve and come back time and time again. That 48 team seems to be a threat to win any time they’re on the track.

A new Harris poll finds that the Bible is America’s favorite book. People are such liars! If the Bible really was America’s favorite book, the way we treat each other and the world would be significantly different! I have yet to see anyone outside of a church casually thumbing through the Bible on a bus train or in the park. But everyone knows the right answer to these polls, even if it is not the answer in their hearts.

The Olympic torch was extinguished several times due to protests as the torch relay passed through Paris. While I’m sure that many share the view that mixing up sports and politics is a bad thing, I think that this just is just more proof that everything involving human beings and their relationships IS politics. There’s no escaping the fact that many around the world believe that the Chinese government’s record on human rights is bad and that China should have a more open government, hence the protests. At the same time, the Olympic games is going to bring prestige to the Chinese no matter what happens, which includes political gain for the government as well. It works both ways. No matter whether it is science, art, or sports, all is politics.

One of the downsides of a big family is having to share everything with a lot of people, of course that’s one of the upsides too! But in this case it meant not being able to watch the Battlestar Galactica premiere last night on the living room TV, in part because I don’t feel like paying for another digital box to watch in the bed room. No worries though, I’d just transfer the TiVo recording to my PC and watch later, or so I thought…

TiVo transfers are notoriously slow, so after waiting an hour, I was all set for some BSG action! I started the video and immediately my CPU fan kicked into high gear emitting the usual jet engine-like whine. I didn’t think much of this as I’d gotten used to it. But about 15 minutes into the show, the video slowed down, even the sound was in slow motion. I was sure that the broadcast had been frakked up and started searching the boards for answers. Finding no mention of broadcast problems, I began to suspect that something on the PC was the problem.

As part of my troubleshooting, I decided to see if I could do something about the fan noise. Upon taking the cover off, I could clearly see at least part of the problem. The heat sink cooling fins were totally clogged with dust. So the fan must have been doing double time to remove the heat since there was virtually no air flow between the fins. I blew out the PC with compressed air and since that time it has run much quieter.

As for the play back speed problem, I turned off Zone Alarm, a real CPU hog, and some other apps. At first this seemed to solve the problem. I started the video again and skipped ahead to where I had stopped. It played normally for about 15 minutes and then the slow down happened again. This time I just closed Windows Media Player and started again, skipping to where I stopped and was able to finish the show. I still need to find the source of this problem, but at the very least I cured the noisy fan and perhaps extended the life of my PC in the process.

Now that Adult Swim has relegated anime to Saturday nights only, I no longer have any reason to watch AS on any other night. I like Family Guy and some of the other comedies, but by the 2nd or 3rd showing of even the funniest Family Guy, I’m finished with it. Comedy simply does not hold up under repeat viewings with me. However, great drama almost always bears repeating. Anime series like Cowboy Bebop, Fullmetal Alchemist, and even Inuyasha (still one of my favorites) are a pleasure to view again because of the varied, complex characters and engaging story lines. There’s almost always something new to be uncovered and with 26 to 50 episodes or more, you won’t be seeing any particular episode over again any time soon, even if they show them every night.

Sadly, according to Adult Swim, anime just doesn’t bring in the ratings of a Family Guy. Well duh! Anime, for all of its popularity, is not mainstream! The television ratings systems are still dominated by the Nielsen system of family TV journaling, mainstream families! The very definition of popular is whatever is popular with mainstream families. Niches like sci-fi and anime will never get the big ratings. The only exceptions are when they are sufficiently not like their niches, like Battlestar Galactica for example. Battlestar Galactica is sci-fi, but at its center is a well crafted human drama that mainstream families can understand despite the occasional space battle.

I’ll still watch Adult Swim anime on Saturdays, but I’ll be doing something else the rest of the week. Not that they’ll miss me of course. I’m decidedly not in the mainstream.

Even with Chicago area gasoline prices approaching $4/gal, with crude oil prices topping $100/barrel why isn’t gasoline more expensive yet? In the past, the oil companies have never hesitated to raise gasoline prices for any and all reasons. Why so shy now? Do I have Dick Cheney to thank once again for this restraint? During the Bush W years, he and Cheney’s big oil pals have done very well indeed, so I’m sure they owe them big time. If gasoline prices shot up to $6 or $7 per gallon in a short period of time before an election, that would cause a great deal of political trouble. Sadly it seems that Americans are more concerned about the price of gasoline than thousands dead in an unending war in Iraq.

With that in mind, gas prices might be used as a barometer of big oil’s confidence in John McCain. If they are confident that he can win the White House in November, then gasoline prices will not rise sharply during the upcoming summer driving season. Perhaps they will stay under $5/gal. If they think there’s no way in hell McCain can win, then bar the door and hello $6/gal gasoline! They’ve shown a lot of restraint over the last three years during which time the price of crude oil has doubled, but once they decide that government control is likely to go over to the oil industry hostile Democrats, they’ll grab all the cash they can before the party’s over.

Yesterday I was thinking about the 4000 plus soldiers the United States has lost during the last 5 years of war in Iraq. I thought, wow, that’s 4000 good soldiers whose services have been lost. Have they been wasted? It certainly seems that way to me. Almost 4 years ago, I wondered here if it were time for the US to adopt a Star Trek style Prime Directive. After 4000 dead soldiers and many times more Iraqi civilians, a non interference amendment to the US Constitution seems like an even better idea.

The rest of the world doesn’t want the United States telling them what kind of government they should have and forcibly removing governments we don’t like. We are not wanted in Iraq by either the Sunni’s or the Shiites, or the Kurds for that matter. To stay now, we are only delaying the inevitable civil war and partitioning of Iraq. I still think, free and open societies are the way to go, but each culture has to decide the when and how of that on their own. That can be very messy, but I suspect far fewer lives will be lost than when outsiders try to impose their will. I hope Iraq will stand as a lesson for the limits of interference in the affairs of others for a long time. Sadly, I think Vietnam was supposed to do that too…