BlogTower

Blade 101/102: The Series Pilot

Bryan Britt — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 00:32:00 -0500

The two-hour premiere opens with Blade setting up shop in Detroit, investigating the vampire House of Chthon. Along the way, he forms an uneasy alliance with Krista Starr, a former military veteren who becomes entrenched in the world of vampires while investigating the murder of her twin brother.

I Replaced the Windows

Bryan Britt — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 06:38:08 -0500

Last year I replaced all the windows in my house with those expensive double pane energy efficient kind. But today I got a call from the contractor who installed them. He was complaining that the work had been completed a whole year ago and I hadn't paid for them.

Hellloooo? Now just because I'm blonde doesn't mean that I am automatically stupid.

So, I told him just what his fast talking sales guy had told ME last year...namely, that in just ONE YEAR these windows would pay for themselves!

Helllooooo? It's been a year!

There was only silence at the other end of the line, so I finally just hung up....

He didn't call back. Guess I won that stupid argument.

The Drunk Ex-Wife

Bryan Britt — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 00:33:05 -0500

A man and his wife are dining at a table in a plush restaurant, and the husband keeps staring at an old drunken lady swigging her gin as she sits alone at a nearby table.

The wife asks, "Do you know her?"

"Yes," sighs the husband, "She's my ex-wife. She took to drinking right after we divorced seven years ago, and I hear she hasn't been sober since."

"My God!" says the wife, "Who would think a person could go on celebrating that long?

Skeleton Key

Bryan Britt — Sun, 25 Dec 2005 16:23:36 -0600

I started out very disappointed in this movie, after it was hyped up pretty good by a friend of mine. While the first portion of most movies is setup and character building, the build up went on way too long. The first half of the movie at least. We had to pause the movie to go do some Christmas stuff and when we got back to the set we decided to watch a SciFi Channel presentation that I was currently recording instead of returning to the movie.

Once my girlfriend fell asleep (she's sick, poor thing), I finished watching the movie by myself. That's the point it got interesting. Things started to happen -- I mean literally. The movie started to actually get some action sequences and some interesting scenes as well as things moving and going bump-in-the-night on screen.

While I can't say that I shy away from spoilers in my opinions, I think I'm going to hold out any mention of what occurs at the end. Don't skip forward to the last 2-3 chapters of the movie. After you have seen it all the way through once, you could probably miss the first 5-6 chapters after that. But the ending by far makes up for the slow start.

Have fun.

Battlestar Galactica Season 2 DVD Release Date

Bryan Britt — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 22:49:33 -0500

The SciFi Channel will release Battlestar Galactica, Season 2 DVD on December 20th, 2005. With thirteen episodes in it's first season and ten in it's second, Battlestar Galactica is half as long as the other Friday Night SciFi series. Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis both have ten episodes and then take a three month haitus and return in January for ten more episodes. I had rather hoped that Battlestar Galactica would return for a second half of a season also.

While I haven't seen any official announcments yet, I'm confident that Battlestar Galactica, as well as SG-1 and Atlantis will all be around next year. Although it's quite possible that SG-1's outlook past Season 10 is cloudy. Depends on how many people watch the show this year, huh?

Snails Away!

Bryan Britt — Fri, 30 Sep 2005 10:50:02 -0500

A wife and her husband were having a dinner party for some important guests. The wife was very excited about this and wanted everything to be perfect. At the very last minute, she realized that she didn't have any snails for escargo for the dinner party, so she asked her husband to run down to the beach with the bucket to gather some snails. Very grudgingly he agreed.

He took the bucket, walked out the door, down the steps, and out to the beach. As he was collecting the snails, he noticed a very inviting bar just a little further down the beach. He kept thinking to himself, "Wouldn't it be great to have just a little drink?" So he went and ended up spending the whole night in that bar, finally falling asleep.

At seven o'clock the next morning he suddenly realised, "Oh no!!! My wife's dinner party!!!" He grabbed his bucket, and ran out the door. He ran down the beach all the way to his apartment. He ran up the stairs of his apartment. He was in such a hurry that when he got to the top of the stairs, he dropped the bucket of snails. There were snails all down the stairs.

The door opened just then, with a very angry wife standing in the door way wondering where he's been all this time. He looked at the snails all down the steps, then he looked at her, then back at the snails and said, "Come on guys, we're almost there!!"

Stargate SG-1, Atlantis, and Battlestar Galactica DVD Release Dates

Bryan Britt — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 01:20:58 -0500

Stargate Atlantis, Season 1 will be out on DVD on November 15, 2005. The pilot episode, Rising, has already been released on DVD.

Complete Season:
Pilot Episode:

Stargate SG-1, Season 8 will be out on DVD on October 4, 2005.

Complete Season:

Battlestar Galactica, Season 1 will be out on DVD on September 20, 2005. It will also include the miniseries pilot episode that was already out on DVD.

Complete Season:
Miniseries:

Geist (Gamecube)

Bryan Britt — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 23:31:30 -0500

I've been seeing a lot of ads on TV for the Nintendo Gamecube game, Geist. You are part of a Special Forces team that is infiltrating a secret lab. You are safely on the way out, when one of your teammates suddenly flinches and shoots you and the other soldiers. As you are glazing over and passing out, you see him come up and reach towards you.

You wake, to find yourself in one of the labs strapped into a huge machine. You feel something that doesn't entirely feel unlike wind. And your soul is ripped from your physical body and sucked into a the machine.

You are freed from the machine and sent into your game by a young girl ghost who teaches you ghosty things. You have to possess items in the game and use your skills of telekinetic to make the items move and operated. The guards and other people running around the complex are frightened, which allows you to possess and take control of their body.

You have to take control of certain people, animals, and items at certain times and do certain tasks in order to escape, save others, and hopefully rejoin your body.

The game starts out as a first-person shooter (FPS) but quickly retasks into a puzzle/strategy. There is your share of shooting, but you also have to know when to possess or talk, instead of kill.

Very interesting game, very unique. I'm renting it now. Seems to be good, but I just don't go around spending $50 on a game. Not for small children, which is why it is rated M-Mature.

Other Recent Movie Reviews

Bryan Britt — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 22:24:22 -0500

In trying to avoid cluttering the Main Page with all one subject, even one so close to my heart as movies and shows, I post a lot of my movie reviews in it's own category and not on the Main Page. Some of the more recent movies posted are:

Mafia! -- September 3
Omega Doom -- August 27
Girl, Interrupted -- August 14
Top Secret! -- July 11

Pterodactyl

Bryan Britt — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 22:05:59 -0500

Three hunters are walking through the field with their quarry thrown over their backs. One states, "I love hunting, the kill. Makes you feel top of the food chain." At this point a huge pterodactyl swoops out of the sky and bites one of the men in half and kills the other two. A college professor on a field trip with a few members of his class, including, of course, the ubiquitous buxom blondes that always trip while running from danger are attacked and lost several of their classmates. A small band of American army special forces are in the woods capturing a terrorist end up saving the college group when they attacked by the terrorists and by a dozen or so pterodactyls.

On this blog, I've torn up the SciFi Channel for their total ineptness presenting us with a movie that is worth watching. (See Alien Apocalypse and Alien Express.) Previous movies were presented with very poor special effects. This movie was well worth watching.

We are so used to seeing aliens on the big screen with full high-quality surround sound, multi-million dollar budgets and paying $7, that we forget that an alien movie we see for free, designed for the small TV screen, a couple of 6" built-in speakers, and a budget of a couple hundred thousand, just won't have the same quality of effects.

At no point in history has there ever been pterodactyls that looked life-like. Pterodactyls, and most dinosaurs in general, are poorly rendered in movies, with the exception of the Jurassic Park series. But even in those movies, pterodactyls looked wrong. So I was able to watch this movie without the expectation of well designed dinosaur birds. I expected the effects to be bad, and am happily surprised that they aren't actually horrible. A few scenes are hokey and cheesy, but only a few.

I expect real pterodactyls to be far more bat-like, than are ever put forth in movies. That would make them believable, and very hard to animate. In this movie, we find out that they are a lot like spiders and bees, in that they collect food and put it with the eggs, so that the babies will have something to eat when they hatch. This is why the pterodactyls are attacking the people and dropping them in the nest full of eggs and newborns.

I spoke too soon. Looks like SciFi ran out of budget for the last 30 minutes. The worst effects scene? A guy crossing a rope hand over hand. I mean, how expensive is that to film?

The Judge's Cigars

Bryan Britt — Fri, 26 Aug 2005 10:09:56 -0500

A defendant in a lawsuit involving large sums of money was talking to his lawyer.

"If I lose this case, I'll be ruined."

"It's in the judge's hands now," said the lawyer.

"Would it help if I sent the judge a box of cigars?"

"Oh no! This judge is a stickler or ethical behavior. A stunt like that would prejudice him against you. He might even hold you in contempt of court. In fact, you shouldn't even smile at the judge."

Within the course of time, the judge rendered a decision in favor of the defendant. As the defendant left the courthouse, he said to his lawyer, "Thanks for the tip about the cigars. It worked!"

"I'm sure we would have lost the case if you'd sent them."

"But, I did send them."

"What? You did?" said the lawyer, incredulously.

"Yes. That's how we won the case."

"I don't understand," said the lawyer.

"It's easy. I sent the cigars to the judge, but enclosed the plaintiff's business card."

Alien Express

Bryan Britt — Sat, 13 Aug 2005 23:10:40 -0500

When I first saw the commercial for the SciFi Original Movie, Alien Express, I was intrigued by how they were going to write aliens onto a train. Did the aliens attack the train? Was the train carrying an alien egg or something and it hatch? How in the world, err, universe, did an alien get on a train?

Alright, so, I'm OK with it. A car waiting at a railroad crossing gets hit by a large meteorite when the train was approaching. The train screeches to a fast halt to help. As often happens with meteorites which turns out to be an alien egg, it hatches. The baby alien goes to hide in the train eating a conductor on the way. Baby aliens come out of eggs with full spiky teeth and an appetite and pregnant.

This alien is one bad dude, err, gal. A hyperactive, super-fast, cloaking alien that spits green pasty acid and has a nervous disorder and bad disposition is on a presidential campaign train eating everyone, starting with the presidential candidate. The alien was born pregnant and laid eggs within the dead bodies, so now there is the mother and 3 babies to contend with.

The alien eats the conductors on this high-speed train and the safety "dead man's switch" doesn't engage, so it's running along the same track at 75 miles an hour with a freight train ahead going 35. Not only do you have 4 mean, hungry aliens, but you have a runaway train with 58 minutes left

Oops. More eggs, more baby aliens. Oh and more bad news. ("Gina, I think you've used up all your bad news for the day.") The freight train ahead is hauling nuclear waste!! I had to laugh out loud. Oops, more eggs hatching. Makes for a really rough day fighting something that is born pregnant and has a 5 minute gestation period.

The tide turns when they realize the aliens have methane blood, which is flammable.

As I've said before, SciFi does some really lousy "SciFi Original Movies" IF you expect them to be serious. While some of them are pretty good movies, with a noticeable lack of budget, some of them are just bad. The special effects in this movie are along the lines of the original Godzilla movie and the plot is half really bad, and half almost satirical.

While I expected to see the little hint at the last scene that everything isn't over, I didn't expect to see another half-dozen meteors heading to earth.

Sad. Really Sad. See it with popcorn and tequila wouldn't hurt.

Liver and Cheese

Bryan Britt — Fri, 05 Aug 2005 13:00:06 -0500

Three handsome male dogs are walking down the street when they see a beautiful, enticing, female Poodle. The three male dogs fall all over themselves in an effort to be the one to reach her first, but end up arriving in front of her at the same time. The males are speechless before her beauty, slobbering on themselves and hoping for just a glance from her in return.

Aware of her charms and her obvious effect on the three suitors, she decides to be kind and tells them, “The first one who can use the words 'liver' and 'cheese' together in an imaginative, intelligent sentence can go out with me.”

The sturdy, muscular black Lab speaks up quickly and says “I love liver and cheese.”

“Oh, how childish,” said the Poodle. “That shows no imagination or intelligence whatsoever.”

She turned to the tall, shiny Golden Retriever and said “How well can you do?”

“Ummmm...I HATE liver and cheese,” blurts the Golden Retriever.

“My, my,” said the Poodle. “I guess it’s hopeless. That’s just as dumb as the Lab’s sentence.”

She then turns to the last of the three dogs and says, “How about you, little guy?”

The last of the three, tiny in stature but big in finesse, is a chihuahua. He gives her a smile, a sly wink, turns to the Golden Retriever and the Lab and says...

“Liver alone. Cheese mine.”

Lottery Results

Bryan Britt — Thu, 30 Jun 2005 14:05:16 -0500

Since Arkansas has yet to allow a lottery, any time I travel I always try to pick up a ticket for whatever state I'm in. One of these days I hope that the voters of Arkansas realize how much money we are giving neighboring states school systems instead of our own. That, along with the gas, hamburger, and local taxes of everything we do in those states while we are there. At the very least, I gave New Mexico education system another $1, not only at the expense of our own school system, but the $1 was taken out of Arkansas and spent in another state, removing it from our economy and community.

OK, so call me selfish. I take a perfectly good Arkansas dollar and take it way away and spend it just for a chance to win a few measly dollars. Sigh. I'm such a bad person.

The people of Arkansas can rest easily and feel smug in the fact that my numbers, 14-22-26-51-52 and Power Ball of 23 was in no way similar to the winning numbers of 8-14-35-38-46+24. So fine. I lost. I hope you are happy.

Just keep in mind that when I DO win, I'm spending the money in Jamaica. So there.

Chili Blajitas

Bryan Britt — Wed, 08 Jun 2005 20:50:35 -0500

OK, it's official. Chili's fajitas are un-good. The meat was marinated, but it was more of a teriyaki instead of fajita seasoning. And fajitas are supposed to bite back when you eat them. They are supposed to be strongly spiced (not necessarily spicy hot). They are supposed to be well to medium well. And served sizzling on a hot plate. Darn. Just got back and making myself hungry.

This is the first time I think I've had fajitas there, although I'm a big fajita guy. The meat, which wasn't cut all the way through so it all strung together, was cooked and seasoned like a hamburger. That was the consistency of the meat. Just like a hamburger. And not one of those lovingly done backyard hamburgers. I'm talking fast food burger. Zero love. And faintly spiced. At least it came out sizzling.

Not only did the meat (hello? onion rationing, or what?) taste boring, the tortilla to wrap it in, was COLD! We aren't talking room-temperature stuff. We are talking refrigerated. What sense does it make to bring out the grilled meat on a hot sizzling steaming platter only to dig it out and put it in a cold wrap? Come on guys. Think about these things.

Think. Or get blogged.

So You Think You Have Computer Problems?

Bryan Britt — Sat, 04 Jun 2005 00:07:04 -0500

As a computer consultant, I get to see all kinds of computer problems. And since I've been in the industry for 27 years (Since 1977), I've pretty well seen them all. Or so I thought.

True story: I've actually seen a computer with two floppy disks jammed into the drive to the point that the drive had to be replaced. Apparently when the computer said "Put in Disk 2" it should of been more specific. (True story.)

I've seen a lot of times that the client would explain everything they are doing and you would walk them through this thing and that thing only to give up and go on-site. When you get there you find out that they didn't actually have the printer cable hooked up, but they swore up and down they did cause they had it plugged into the wall.

Many times you'll find a computer with PEBKAC or ID:10-T errors. Sometimes you'll find a customer that you just want to... ok, well. You get the idea.

But in all of my years, I've never seen THIS.

A woman went out to a local computer store to buy a computer that her family wanted her to get so she can e-mail them. The sales person told her that they would deliver the computer, set it up and give her some pointers on using it. If she had any problems later all she had to do was call their "Technical Support" they would talk her through it over the phone or come back to her house to find the problem. The sales person asked her if she wanted to purchase 2 years in-house warranty, the woman said yes.

A few months went by, she was getting good sending and receiving mail and checking the other web sites with only one call to tech support until one day -- She called tech support.

SUPPORT: Hello, technical support how can I help you

LADY: Last night my computer started making a lot of hissing noise at me so I shut it down. This morning when I turned it on the computer started hissing and cracking, then started smoking and a bad smell, then nothing.

SUPPORT: I will have a technician come over first thing this morning, just leave the computer just like it is so they can find the problem and fix it or change it out with another computer. Give me your address; phone number and the technician will be there just as soon as they can.

When the technician got there, the lady showed the technician where the computer was, said what happen to it, this is what the technician found wrong.

Other Recent Movie Reviews

Bryan Britt — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 22:24:39 -0500

Muppet Treasure Island -- April 14
Ransom -- April 14
Executive Decision -- April 13
Father's Day -- April 7

Explosive Decompression

Bryan Britt — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 23:07:08 -0500

So when a airliner gets a big hole blasted in it's side, where does all of the paper flying around the cabin come from? I mean the only paper in airplanes are the little travel magazines, but the paper flying around is unbound. Newspapers and such. Maybe the magazine staples all get pulled and sucked out the hole. Never did figure that out.

Mythbusters did an experiment in Episode 10 to see if a bullet would blow out the side of a plane. OK, so the bullet didn't, but let's just say they found something that did.

On TWA Flight 840 back in 1986, a bomb blew a hole in the plane and 4 people, one of them with the seat, were blown out the hole. But no mention of a cabin full of papers. During the Aloha Flight 243, the roof tore off and pretty much the movie version of things occurred, except that the stuff flying around was debris and insulation, not paper.

I just watched Executive Decision and sure enough. Big hole blasted in the side at 30,000 feet, a row of seats went out the hole, and all these thousands of papers flew around the plane and out the hole.

But where does the paper come from?

NASA Keeps Rovers Roving

Bryan Britt — Fri, 08 Apr 2005 01:46:36 -0500

Talk about being over budget.

The Mars Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, were blasted off and landed on Mars over 14 months ago. They were supposed to work for 90 days, only 3 months. 14 months later they are still chugging along.

Even the Spirit, which had a bum wheel and was coated in dust has gotten a new lease on life. It's back up to nearly full power, and even the gimp wheel has shaken itself back into place and is working fine. For a while there Spirit even had to drive backwards to limit the trouble the wheel would cause.

Opportunity is showing a little age now for the first time, but both rovers are doing great. So now NASA has to pay to keep the information coming in. NASA has extended funding for the Rover Project for the next 18 months. No one is sure how long the little buggies are going to last. But we are hopeful that we can still get a huge amount of information out of them.

Given the fact that there are no oil changes, recharge stations, tow trucks or maintenance checks, when these things break it's probably going to happen suddenly. A wheel will lock up, although the thing can continue with a couple of bad wheels, the batteries will croak, or something will physically break. Eventually they will stop.

But until they do, the Rovers and the scientists are fully funded. For the next 18 months anyway. If they last longer than that, then NASA's really going to be scratching their heads about what do with them.

Already the scientists grab coffee and donuts and go try to figure out what they can have them do... They've done everything they were designed for. 90 days of info and finding conclusive proof of a history of water on Mars. Done. Did that. What next? Now the Rovers are creating maps of the surface and stopping for the occasional photo-op or soil sample. Which is all important. We still need tons more information if we are ever going to build a McDonald's there.

Beltane Management Test

Bryan Britt — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 17:51:28 -0500

In the search for Intelligent Life in the Universe, or at least for the occasional bright idea from one of our managers, we've started using a Personality Test from The Keil Centre Chartered Psychologists. At the end of the test, you'll be given the opportunity to either contact me or your very closest psychologist.

QUESTION #1:

How do you put a giraffe into the refrigerator?

I Love How Blogging Works

Bryan Britt — Sun, 03 Apr 2005 22:28:39 -0500

I was poking around on Chris Pirillo's blog tonight, it's an interesting read, but I liked the old format when you could actually read the article instead of just a 3-4 word except. And when I read other blogs, I like to look at their blogroll -- their list of favorite blogs they read. I figure that if I enjoy reading their blog, I might also enjoy reading the blogs they read. OK, well, it doesn't often happen, but you can run across a gem every now and then.

He linked over to Ramblings of a Southernbelle in his favs. She's discussing one of the banes of blogging, trackback spam. I won't go into it in this article, but yeah. it's a huge pain and something that we (Blogware resellers and all other blogging companies) are working towards eradicating.

She has this article on her blog talking about this great waste of time she read about on Sarah Lane's blog. Following the bouncing ball, I find myself on Sarah's site reading some of the great articles she has there.

So following links following links following links, I've read some great articles, had some fun, and found a great website. So now I waste time with the best of them. I've also sent the site to all of my friends (and enemies) so they don't get any more work done than I am and make me look bad.

Oh? The site? CuteLittleKittens.com. There. It'll be the weekend before you know it.

Alien Apocalypse

Bryan Britt — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 22:18:35 -0600

A Doctor, a Gimp, an African-American, and a Beauty land on Earth after 40 years in Space. Sounds like the start of a bad joke. OK, well, maybe that's a bad comparison.

You have to love a movie where half of the main actors get killed before the first commercial. The Gimp gets killed because her leg is hurt. OK, we figured that one out. The black guy gets his head eaten cause he was a stand-up type of guy, and alien monsters don't like stand-up types of guys, except as lunch.

The funeral scene was great. Wonder why they don't have more movies showing funeral pyres with mutant alien crickets bowing and chanting?

Let's face it. SciFi Channel makes a lot of... less than par... movies. I watch all of them. Wouldn't miss them. But often I'm left with the thought that it was a good plot idea, just poor writing... and often poor acting also.

During this movie, I spent much of it wondering if it was supposed to be funny, or if it was just that bad of movie. That question was answered as they gathered their forces. You just don't say "Tippecanoe and Tyler, too" in serious movies.

Bottom line: See this. Just don't see it expecting Star Wars, Episode III or Aliens or even Something About Mary. It's just an enjoyable Saturday night, popcorn, sit on the floor movie. If you take the movie seriously, you'll be disappointed. Bruce Campbell makes for a good time.

Just remember. According the the IMDB, this was one of two choices presented to SciFi. You could of been watching "The Man With the Screaming Brain." [EDIT 8/13: Apparently "The Man With the Screaming Brain" premieres on SciFi on September 10th.]

[After biting off a guy's head.]
Mite Governor: That is one of our favorite delicacies... Next to wood.

Doctor: If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem.
Human Captors: Shut up.

[The Doctor fixing to do some doctoring.]
Doctor: Here, drink this.
Patient: Why?
Doctor: It will kill the pain.
Patient: Why do you want me to drink that if you are going to stick me with a knife?
Doctor: I'm a Sadist.

SHA-1 HASH Computer Security Compromised

Bryan Britt — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 02:46:42 -0600

Now don't go getting upset or scared or go running around yelling "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" The sky isn't falling. It's mearly taken some major damage and the engineers are saying that it needs to be replaced before it does fall.

SHA-1 computer hash code has been broken by a team in China. A "hash" code takes a file, and encodes the document into a string of characters. If you think about when you were a kid, if you take a message and cut out every other character, then that would be a hash of the original message. When you read the message and compare the hash to it, if any of the characters are different, then you know you are not reading the original message.

SHA-1 is often used to encode passwords and secure communications. But don't worry, no one is going to be breaking into your grocery list or your dirty pictures anytime soon.

<<CAUTION: Superscripts Ahead>>

Recent Movie Reviews

Bryan Britt — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 22:31:18 -0600

Sky Captian and the World of Tommorrow -- March 10
Y2K/Terminal Countdown -- January 17
Battlestar Galactica, the Movie -- December 02
And Now for Something Completely Different -- November 24

Spirit gets Squeegied

Bryan Britt — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 14:22:57 -0600

One of the stories that I've followed closely in the media was the Martian trek of the twin landers, Spirit and Opportunity. As the mission went on, and was nearing the 90-day goal, and expected end of the mission, the NASA controllers started getting more daring in what they wanted the little guys to do.

After many calculations and tests and heavy breathing exercises, the NASA controllers slowly crept Spirit into a large crater, to explore, and die. Well.. it didn't die. It kept going, and going.

After fully learning all that they could learn in the crater, and having a perfectly viable robot on their hands, they had to figure how to get the thing out! Slowly, and backwards, Spirit climbed out of the crater and went on exploring the planet.

Sounding more and more like a Douglas Adams 5-part Trilogy, the Spirit and Opportunity kept going. Celebrating it's one year anniversary of the start of the 3-month mission, it kept going. Spirit gets a gummed up wheel, and it keeps going. Opportunity doesn't even have any problems, it just keeps going.

I was a more than a little disappointed when they announced a couple months ago that Spirits life may be coming to an end. The solar panels were getting more and more coated with the fine red Martian dust that was affecting the ability to recharge the batteries. Opportunity was considerably cleaner and they said it looked like it just blasted off of the showroom floor.

But, everyone rejoice!! Spirit was the victim of a hit-and-run dust-devil that polished the solar panels and brought the power generation from 60% capacity back up to 93%. This gives the Spirit a new lease on life.

So, good roving, Spirit and Opportunity. Find us some more cool stuff to look at.

Fake Glass Recipe and a Skeletal Foot

Bryan Britt — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 16:32:55 -0600

For apsolutely no reason at all, I decided to post this. In Googling and clicking around, not particually looking for anything in particular, I found exactly something not in particular. I felt that if I didn't post this to the blog then when I actually needed breakaway glass, I'd never get a hit.

The same thing once occured to me many years ago while visiting some local yard sales. I went to one and sitting on the table was a skeletal foot. The high-quality type similar to the educational skeletons in schools. I figured that if I didn't buy the foot, then when I needed a skeletal foot, I'd never be able to find one. So I plopped down the $1.

Fake Glass Recipe

2 cups water
1 cup white corn syrup
3 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar.

Mix all the ingredients together. Let it come to a boil, which will be about 220 degrees. Let it go to 300 degrees and pour. Silicone molds work best.

I haven't tried it, and I don't know how it would compare to actual movie breakaway glass, but hey, it's recorded for posterity. Just don't come after me if you cut yourself with sugar. I'm not liable for your lack of safety and common sense.

SGA-111: The Eye

Bryan Britt — Fri, 21 Jan 2005 21:12:41 -0600

Today is National Stargate SG-1/Stargate Atlantis Season Continuance Day. After teasing us with the first few episodes during the Fall, SciFi Channel finally continue showing the SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis episodes. Finally. Now I can stop therapy.

Beckett: [Looking at the lifesigns detector] These wee dots don't tell us much about whose who… How do we know which one's the Major?
Ford: He'll be the dot getting rid of all of the other dots.

Beckett: What kind of plan is that?
Sheppard: A Rodney McKay type of plan. It's all we got.

Cmdr. Koyla: You said this would work.
McKay: I don't know if you noticed or not but I'm an extremely arrogant man who tends to think all of his plans will work. [Kolya punches him.]

Happy Birthday to Me

Bryan Britt — Wed, 19 Jan 2005 02:50:43 -0600

Happy Birthday to Me!
Happy Birthday to Me!
Happy Birthday to Bryan!
Happy Birthday to Me!

In case you couldn't figure it out, today is my birthday. Today on this day back in 1966, my parents, Bill and Pamela Britt, drove through a blinding blizzard from their home in tiny Aberdeen, MS to the county seat of Amory. I'm sure they would say that since then, nothing has been the same.

If I were a girl, which I wasn't, I was to be named Kimberly Lee. If I were a boy, I was to be named David Moore. For those following along, you'll notice that I'm not named David Moore Britt. When I was born, my parents decided that I didn't look like a David, so they named me Brian Leigh Britt.

Twenty-three hours after that name was entered on the birth certificate and one hour before it was official, Dad spoke up and the spelling changed to Bryan Lee. Thank you, Dad.

Lycos Attacks Spammers with Screensavers

Bryan Britt — Fri, 03 Dec 2004 00:51:25 -0600

The SETI@Home project was the first global project to show the feasibility of a wide-distributed parallel processing computer. The Project uses idle computer processor time from thousands of computers to process signals from space looking for extra-terrestrial life. The over 65 TeraFLOPS of calculations (A VERY large amount) would put the SETI system as the second largest supercomputer in the world.

The SETI project uses the idle time of a computer by running as a screensaver. Now, Lycos has decided to do a similar wide-distributed project of their own. This time, as a denial-of-service, errr, reduction-of-service attack against known and verified spammers.

When your computer running thier program switches into screensaver mode, the computer will start using it's idle bandwidth to start sucking information from the spammers machine, drying up the spammers bandwidth that it is trying to use to send out unsolicited emails to get you to buy Viagra. This has the effect of slowing down the amount of spam that they can send out at a time. The idea is that it will make sending spam less profitable by making the spammers increase the amount of bandwidth they have. By using the distributed computer screensavers, it's a loosing battle. The system would just send more requests to take up the extra bandwidth. Lycos states that it will never take over 95% of the available bandwidth.

While the whole thing is a Push-me-Pull-you, it's a halarious use of idle bandwidth and computer time that your computer would just be spinning your name on the screen. Lycos states that according to their lawyers the system is totally legal -- although I would rate it at least greyish. It may be legal, but the spammers will undoubtedly sue Lycos to stop the system. It would be impossible and equally unfeasible to try to sue the users of the program. That would be like trying to rake the yard by shooting leaves off the tree with a BB gun.

CNN just posted an article on it, I'm sure the other news services will have it soon. My computers rarely get any idle free time and when they do they are looking for aliens. But I'll have to admit that I'll enjoy sitting back with my pom-poms cheering Lycos and seeing how this plays out. Stay tuned.

Twomommy's Hot Spiced Tea

Bryan Britt — Wed, 24 Nov 2004 13:22:11 -0600

Every year when I go to whip up a batch of my grandmother's ("Twomommy") Hot Spiced Tea, I never can find the recipe. Last year I wrote it on a card and put it inside the container, thinking that when it gets low enough to see the card, it will be time to make more anyway.

Within a day or so, almost my entire stock of tea, and card, was poured into artsy containers and all given away for Christmas gifts.

So this year, after getting enough stuff to make a 55 gallon drum of hot tea, and getting the recipe, once again, from my Dad, I decided to post the recipe here. Where I'm sure I won't remember I posted it next year. Enjoy.

Twomommy's Hot Spiced Tea

3/4 cup Lipton instant tea, unsweetened, with lemon
2 1/2 cups Sugar
2 cups Tang
1 tablespoon Ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon Ground cloves

Mix. Use 2 tablespoons in 1 cup boiling water.

Print this and tape it on the jar........ then you can find it next time

Yeah. Sure.