Comcast, grrr.....

I got my first bill from Comcast since dropping their cable TV service today... and, although it's supposedly for next month's service, and although they indicate elsewhere that I'm only signed up for Internet at this point, there's still a line item for TV service on the bill. On that same bill, there's a line about "we're here for you 24/7 at 1-800-COMCAST"... but if you call and work your way through to "billing inquiries", they say that they're closed and normal business hours blah blah blah... I guess I'll try again tomorrow, but how can something as simple as changing your service plan be such a pain to get right the first time?

DVD pick: Master of the Flying Guillotine

OK, this one's not for everybody... but if you like '70s martial arts films, and haven't seen this one yet, get it now. Sure, it's got its share of standards for the genre (including "perky daughter of the martial arts master", "blind fighter" and "elimination tournament")... but there are a number of oddities that just work well (the tournament's not the whole movie, nor even the focus... the hero only has one arm... and the blind guy's the villain). On top of all that, there's the matter of the "flying guillotine", the villain's weapon... it's aptly named, improbable in form, and entirely too cool for words. For added fun, check out the movie trailers... when a '70s trailer says a movie will "blow your mind", you can guess what state they expected it to be viewed in... :)

Happy Solstice Day!

Today's the Summer Solstice (happens at 4:59pm Pacific), which means Summer officially begins at that time. For those of you outdoors-liking types, this means warm (and sometimes downright hot) temperatures for the foreseeable future, and you're welcome to them. For people more along my bent of thought, it means that the days all get shorter from here, and I'll be seeing less and less of the accursed sun. In either case, have a good day!

No longer Comcastic

So, yesterday I trundled down to Radio Shack and picked up the $6 part that would let me hook up my new TV to the aerial antenna that's been sitting on my roof since before I bought my house. Tuning in the analog stations reminded me why cable TV was such a cool thing back in the '80s... but then, I tuned the digital stations. As I hoped, my crusty old reception hardware handled the new signals handily, so I watched the news in high-def... then quickly surfed through the broadcast channels (mains and alternates... PBS is now three separate channels!) to verify that programming in the digital spectrum was about as terrible as programming on cable, and turned off the TV for the night.

Today, on the way to work, I dropped by my local Comcast office and dropped off my cable box. Sure, I'll miss CNBC and the Cartoon Network, and the occasional oddity I might stumble across otherwise on cable, but for $50+ a month, keeping cable TV just wasn't worth it. Of course, Comcast won't let you off their hook too easily... now, I'm paying $10 a month more for my Internet access (which I expected, that's how they keep people from migrating to sattellite TV en masse), and I'll get a one-time $12.99 "service downgrade" fee for them to come out and filter their crap off of my cable connection (something that I think is just wrong, but, well, since my Internet options are limited, I'm not about to pitch a fit about).

With any luck, I'm done with cable TV forever... we'll see what thunderstorms and (eventually) snowstorms do to convince me otherwise. Now, if Qwest would just speed up their fiber rollout plans...

Two mini-rants

First off, I stumble across the occasional "economic forecast" article on the Web... usually somebody with a plan to sell or axe to grind going on about how OMG IT'S ALL COMING DOWN AROUND OUR EARS. Lately, I've been seeing a lot of "It's going to be the Great Depression all over again due to Hyperinflation" talk... please, make up your mind. As I recall, skyrocketing prices was about the last thing happening during the Great Depression, because nobody was earning, so nobody was buying. Gotta have that demand to fuel inflation, don't you know. If you want to talk scary, talk about places where hyperinflation has really taken hold in the past, like, oh, Germany early last century, if my memory serves.

On a more petulant note, in the "we're not making nearly enough green" department, Comcast decided, over the course of the day, to update the firmware in my cable box. The channel guide has now replaced one of the five channels it showed at a time to an ad link. I think I've had about enough of their cable TV "service", and, if Qwest ever gets around to rolling out their fiber optics to my neighborhood, I'd likely give their Internet service the laugh as well. I was annoyed enough that I drove straight over to a neighborhood Radio Shack looking for a transformer for the crusty old aerial on my roof, only to find them closed... tomorrow, I will find one and experiment... Comcast's days as my TV source may well be numbered.

Wii Downloads: LostWinds

Got another $10 looking for a game to buy? LostWinds just might be the game for you. Granted, it's not terribly long, nor is it terribly deep, but it's a well-crafted "platformer" game that makes good use of both the Wiimote and Nunchuck without turning the game into a workout.

The back story is a minor twist on the standard theme of "villian mystically bound for eternity escapes imprisonment"... the twist being that one of the heroic types, a wind spirit, got bound with him. When the villian escapes, she remains bound in a shard of the binding stone, able to blow things around a bit but not much else. The story begins when she lures a local village boy to her aid and they set out on adventures.

The controls are simple... the Nunchuck controls the boy (direction stick and Z for "use"), while the Wiimote controls the wind spirit on-screen (with A and B used for various "special" skills). Why this works so well, in part, is because the designers made the choice of the boy being "just a boy"... no super-jumping, bouncing on critters' heads, or anything like that. He runs, he grabs hold of ledges to climb up, he carries light objects, and that's about it. Everything else is handled by the wind spirit... you need the boy to jump across a gap, you blow him across, that sort of thing. If you've ever played Okami (I intend to get the Wii version one of these days, but I did play it on the PS2), it's a similar control scheme, but without the complexity or precision required of that game.

The only potential downside to this game... the end clearly implies that they intend to release more/similar games in this game world, likely with the same characters. If you're of the mindset that designers shouldn't make short games to milk the public's money, that might be an issue... but for $10, I had a blast playing a game episode, where I might have questioned spending $50 on a longer "complete" version. Give it a go!

Something silly: the TTCA

Yes, it's the Trebuchet Transport Cooperative of Albany.

New York: Internet Censor?

Pull up a chair, kiddies... let me take you back to the early 1990's, when I first heard about this "internet" thing. Being the sort that routinely used local bulletin boards for chat and downloads, the idea of a single dial-in to access computers around the world without paying long-distance fees quickly became a "gotta have it" thing. The Web wasn't much of a much back then, but there were all sorts of other resources available, with names like Archie, Veronica, Gopher and the like... most of which have gone by the wayside with the rise of the Web.

One holdover from that age is a thing called Usenet. Before individual website forums became all the rage, this service acted as a single, HUGE forum that spanned the globe... it was able to do so because it's a decentralized service. Anybody could set up a server and tie in to the network, and join in discussions on tens of thousands of topics, all arranged in a hierarchy that made what you were looking for relatively easy (by the standards of the time, at least).

As long as I've had an Internet connection, access to a Usenet server has been included in the price, up to this very day. Mind you, I'm not so much up on chat these days, and there are much simpler/easier ways of getting files than through uuencoded posts too (damn, now that's showing my age and geekiness), but it's always been there when I decided I wanted to check it out One More Time. While I've been surprised by its continued resilience, I can see why it survived... as a service predating the early '90s, its requirements are laughably low by today's standards, and there's still a certain geek cachet to having a "seekrit" message area, unknown to the unwashed masses that roam the Web today.

New York is trying to start the ball rolling on putting down this relic of a service... they've convinced three of the larger Internet providers to drop their support for the service (here's the news story), because, as with the Internet at large, there are unsavory types that use the service for their own ends too... the purported target in this case being child porn traders. I have no beef with blocking out/shutting down/blowing up the offending parts of the service, but targeting the whole, or large swaths, based on the behavior of a few, is simply wrong. It would be like shutting down Google Image Search because naughty photos occasionally show up, or shutting down Mapquest because it includes streets that prostitution occurs on.

I suppose I shouldn't get too excited... I'm sure that Usenet is a marginal thing for ISPs these days, and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if my ISP were to quietly drop support for it for just that reason... especially since it's still available through any number of non-ISP run servers. What really bothers me, though, is a state government trumpeting that they're further restricting your online options (options, presumably, you didn't even know you had), even if you're not in their state, for your own good/the good of the children/etc.

What's cookin': Cheesecake

What can I say, I'm all about dessert, the "worse for you" the better. This recipe's one I get called on routinely to make for gatherings at work and the like. Oh, and for those of you that are gluten-averse, I suspect you could do a fair replica of the crust using pulverized gluten-free cookie bits instead of graham cracker crumbs, but that's an experiment I'll leave to you. On to the goodness:

Ingredients

• 1 c. graham cracker crumbs
• 3/4 c. sugar
• 6 T. butter
• 1 1/2 c. sour cream
• 2 eggs
• 2 t. vanilla extract
• 1 lb. cream cheese

Equipment

• Food Processor
• Small pan, suitable for melting butter
• Rubber spatula, bowl scraper, or equivalent
• Springform pan (8" or 9")

Procedure

• Preheat oven to 325F
• Melt 4T of butter
• Place graham cracker crumbs, 1/4c. of sugar, and melted butter into food processor, pulse to combine. You may need to scrape down the sides a bit to get the desired even texture.
• Pour the crumb mixture into the springform pan and distribute evenly across the bottom. Don't worry about being too exact, and don't expect to be able to compress this crust material... it'll come apart if you try, and it's totally unnecessary to do so.
• Set the remaining 2T of butter to melting
• Add the sour cream, remaining 1/2c. of sugar, eggs, and vanilla to the food processor and combine on low speed for 1 minute.
• Add the cream cheese in chunks to the food processor, then pulse to combine until smooth.
• Pour the last of the melted butter into the processor bowl, then pour the entire mess into the springform pan... it'll likely be viscous enough that you'll need to use your spatula to get it all out. Again, make sure the mixture spreads evenly throughout the pan.
• Place the pan in the lower third of your oven for 45 minutes
• Gently move the pan to a higher rack, and turn on your broiler... the goal is to get some browning of the top of your cheesecake, and (hopefully) minimize any cracking as it cools.
• Let the cheesecake cool at room temperature for about an hour, then refrigerate overnight before serving.

This is a tasty treat... depending on the group and the reason, I've found 8-12 servings works for this recipe. Some side notes for you...

• I'm not one for recommending specific brands normally, but I've found that the Philadelphia cream cheese works best for this recipe... I'm guessing the bargain brands have some ingredient variation that alters the final texture somewhat.
• Still on the cream cheese... I wouldn't recommend using "low-fat" or any other "non-real" cream cheese here... I forget where, but I heard that they won't "set up" properly.
• That 1-hour rest at room temperature is more than just a Good Thing... the cheesecake will still be quite warm when you're done with it, time during which the cheesecake will strengthen its internal structure and not be trying to cook nearby items in the refrigerator. For those of you with dairy-fiend kitties, letting it cool in the microwave isn't a bad idea... :)
  

Zombie Caterpillars?!?

Nature never ceases to amaze me, especially the smaller in scale you go. Try this one on for size... Zombie Caterpillars. Goosebumps, creepy... and pretty cool, too.

Netflix Player

I hope, by now, that you've all at least heard about this nifty little device put out by Roku (the product page can be found here)... streaming video to your TV from Netflix without any additional monthly outlay, just $99 for the box itself. Not surprisingly, there was a rush on the little beasties the day they came out, so I finally received mine yesterday. After playing with it a bit, I can give at least a qualified recommendation to you... if you've got a decent Internet connection, and a Netflix account, you probably want one of these toys. I don't know that everything's "mature" enough for you to go out and get a Netflix account just to use this player, but it's a close call.

Now, having said that, here's the little (and maybe not-so-little) gripes I've come up with about the player so far. The box itself is beautiful to my engineer's eyes, because it doesn't have a bunch of extraneous bits to it, just the jacks necessary for power and various outputs... but I could see how the squat little black box just wouldn't strike some as aesthetically pleasing. One glaring omission, to my mind, is the lack of any power on/off function... it's always on, unless you unplug it or have it on a switched power strip or some such. The box doesn't seem to dissipate a lot of power (it's warm, but not hot to the touch), but, in days of rising energy prices, every little bit counts, as it were. Maybe in the next version of the box?

Apart from that, the rest of my gripes are with the service itself... yes, as has been widely reported, the movie and show selection are limited, mainly due to licensing constraints, but that's something that will work itself out over time. While the quality of the video I've gotten is generally quite good, it looks like whatever compression or recording method they're using doesn't cope well with "jerky" animation, as is often seen in independent/amateur animation (I used "Cartoon Noir" for comparison, since I received the disc from Netflix the day before), but thankfully doesn't seem to impact more polished fare (at least, "Dilbert" and "Heavy Metal" seemed to play nicely). Most annoying of all, since I hoped to use this service to sample some of the TV shows that people constantly talk about, some of the seasons they have online are incomplete, likely for licensing reasons... in particular, I queued up "Dead Like Me", and the first episode isn't available, which I would think would be a no-brainer.

Gripes aside, it's really a very nice system... choose what you want to have queued up through the Netflix website, then watch it on your TV whenever you want. Movies just play, while episodic fare is subdivided into its various episodes first. The box (or the server?) remembers where you left off in any given title, so you can leave it for as long as you like, then come back and continue or start from scratch. Fast Forward, Reverse, and Search are all handled through thumbnail images taken about every 10 seconds for the length of the film, which you can use to find specific parts of a show you've seen before (there is no "chapter select" like on a DVD, maybe in future revisions). You can even rate what you watched through the box when you're done, and remove items from your queue that way too, if you're so inclined.

So, again, if you're on Netflix already, and have a decent Internet connection, you probably want one of these toys... and if you haven't tried Netflix yet, you really should, especially if you don't have a high-speed Internet connection.