Growing up, one of my favorite “movie” heroes was Indiana Jones. From Raiders to the Temple of Doom and even the Grail..
From fighting nazis to fighting of mystical hindi shamans that could pull your heart out of your chest, he always managed to survive.. and in style. Learning to use a bullwhip in texas, the only thing I ever thought of was using it to swing from tree branch to tree branch (that never seems to quite work out.. damn texas mesquite…)
Anyways, check out the trailer at the official site. Looks good! Cannot wait till the May 22nd! IJ4:Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Merry holidays everyone. Hope you are well and enjoying yourselves.
I had a wonderful Christmas here with a fabulous home cooked meal by the girlfriend. We will be heading off to Akita this friday to celebrate the new year’s in the traditional japanese way with her family. ( visiting the family shrine and following it up with lots of fresh fish and sake!)
On a side note; the line at the KFC near my apartment was nearly 60 people deep with a 2 hour wait. Why you ask? Fried Chicken is the christmas food here, well that and christmas cake. I guess ham is not popular, that is fine by me though!
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For those of you that are not upgrading to a iPod classic or the new mini, here is a firmware hack the updates the 5/5.5 gen to have the same functionality ( Coverflow and split screen playback.) It seems to work really well and isn’t too slow with coverflow (although, only perhaps 40% of my music has cover art..)
FW Hack - http://driven-design.net/
FW updater - http://www.getipodwizard.com/
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I grew up playing a lot of chess with my dad. As with most things you do with your parents as a child, you hate it. You loose to the point of wanting to stop completely and then one day you start winning. A complete turn around, as it goes. To the point where perhaps your family member stop playing you because you beat them and they don’t win anymore. Either way good times.
I picked up a magnetic travel chess board for the cheapz a while back and I have gotten back into enjoying chess. Now my primary adversary is starting to be a worthy opponent.. now I have to add some more advanced rules.
Anyways, the original point of this post.. variations of chess. After trying to answer some questions about chess, I wondered if there were any differences or other games based on the 8×8 classical version.. and apparently there are a lot! From 8×10 boards 10×10 boards and more. Casablanca seems to be more interesting, adding a Chancellor and Archbishop.. how cool! Now all I want is a knight that says Ni!
*magnetic boards work great on trains!
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For the life of me, I cannot remember who told me that children have to be 9 months or older before they can be in movies due to health laws. Whomever, you were wrong.
Hollywood Babies and where they come from.
Hey Alden, maybe you should try to get your kid into acting! $727 for 20 minutes of work!?? Thats awesome.
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Having just been to Vietnam and at a current lull in my current reading, I have been hitting the web for materials. Recently finishing Robert Mcnamara’s “In Retrospect” I was seeking more information about the Vietnam quagmire, more so how we became entrenched there. I came across this..
Pentagon Papers:
The report that would later become famous as the “Pentagon Papers” was the United States-Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense, a 47-volume, 7,000-page, top-secret United States Department of Defense history of the United States’ political and military involvement in the Vietnam War from 1945 to 1971.
(Taken from Wikipedia.)
You can browse through most of this at: Origin and depth of the US Goverments involvement in Indochina from WW2 to the Vietnam War. Follow to the bottom for the other volumes.
FDR seemed to have a solid grasp on reality. Too bad current adminsitration members don’t.
And because, obviously I don’t read enough, check out here for more information about american foreign policy from the end of WW2 through the withdrawal from Vietnam.
I wish the damn e-readers or UMPCs were cheaper. Printing out these pages at work and taking them home is killing a lot of trees.
Well, I have been debating for some time as to whether or not I wanted one and I finally decided to do it. I bought a camcorder, the Sony DCR-HC96. I really wanted the Sony HDR-HC3, but do to the cost and my lack of that much expendable income, I decided on the previous.
Anyways, you can see the specs. Minidv, 10 optical/80 digital zoom and a really nice form factor and direct support in iMovie and other video editing sweets. So maybe soon I will be making some sweet videos of the japanese in their native habitat. Now I just have to get over the feeling of being ‘that guy’ that takes the camcorder everywhere and records everything.
What else is going on.. heading to Okinawa on thursday for 5 days and 4 nights. Hopefully no typhoons will ‘attack’ japan. The weekend after that, I am heading to Tokyo for the Zen Nihon Aikido Embutaikai, the all japan big Aikido demonstration. Same as last year, I am going with the Saino high school club and Murakami sensei. Should be a blast and I am looking forward to getting recordings of all the different shihans.
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Silicon Valley Fight Club. Looks like fun.. I wonder how long before one of them is killed..
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I just finished watching some TV shows I missed while I was on vacation. I have to say that ‘The Office’, by far, has to be one of the funniest shows on the idiot box right now. Steve Carrell is one funny bastard. If you have watched this show, I recommend it..
Closer to nirvana