A Perfect Shadow

I’m excited about attending PAX Prime in Seattle, WA again this year. Gaming, Seattle and friends. It’ll be great.

I love reading and my little collection of books and comics I haven’t caught up on are stealing lots of brain cycles from me lately. So I’ve been reading a lot and writing down ideas for some the dungeons and dragons game I run with some friends. There is something satisfying about finishing an issue of a comic and sealing it up in the bag.

Read, Bag, Tape and Done!

Goal tonight is to scrape time to catch up on another series. Probably Scalped. We will see.

Running CoconutBattery has not only informed me my batteries maximum charge is 90% of what it was when new, but also I am using a 30 month old laptop. Wow. Way to go little notebook.

Another interesting thing is I could buy a new one from an app on my iPhone. Which is an example of software and service being the shit when it comes to cool factors. Also my notebook keeps saying “When I was a young nobody purchased notebooks from a phone.”

I watched the awesome Green Lantern movie on Saturday and want to see it again, but have been busy reading me some Green Lantern comics. I think it’s the vastness of the setting which is the entire universe with space travel, the green ring which allows for such a variety of awesome powers and a good overall themes of will vs. fear. All the other superheros just run around cities and defeat a few bad guys. Green Lanterns seem to be all saving the universe, planets or other super-great feats.

Photo of Trade Paperbacks of Green Lantern: Rebirth and Green Lantern: No Fear

A little research lead me to discover that Green Lantern had a “reboot” of sorts in 2005 and the trade paperback Green Lantern: Rebirth is the start of that. Which lead to “Sweet, I have somewhere to start.” and the purchase of the first two trades and finally some Green Lantern to read.
I’m about a quarter of the way into rebirth and am really enjoying it so far. A lot is happening pretty quickly which is a change from the slower pace of some Vertigo titles I’m used to reading. I guess superhero comics need to run at a faster pace since there are so many bad guys to defeat.

This all leads me to a comic book industry that really fails in helping new readers know what they should be reading when something catches our eye. The Green Lantern has been around since July 1940. That is a lot to read if you start from the beginning (which nobody ever does, except that one guy, but he’s a bit strange) and it’s hard to know where to start. Especially when so many of comics branch off from their main series. A lot of comics don’t list where it is at in the story. Is this issue 2 of 5, a one-shot issue perfect for someone new to the franchise or a good spot to jump onto a new series. Most just have the issue number (68) and the fear that now I need to catch up on 67 issues to enjoy this interesting looking comic. I’ve since learned how to navigate most of this, but I cannot do so easily while standing in front of the comics in my local comic shop. I need to research this stuff on the web or chat with my local comic shop guys (who are very helpful most of the time).

My ask would be to have a little help with knowing what to get. The Green Lantern trades are nice, but there are no freaking numbers to know where to start. Perhaps “Green Lantern: Rebirth (1)”, “Green Lantern: No Fear (2)” would be a great start. I’m thinking how Manga always have numbers on their series so I have an idea of what to buy.

OK. My rant is done. Back to reading me some comics.

Simple app that lets you use a single mouse and keyboard across multiple computers. I’m in the process of getting it setup. Wish me luck.

update:
I have it up and running.

Thanks to the following sites I found via Google:

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/how-to-configure-synergy-in-six-steps/

Why I’m happy to see mobile devices getting faster and faster CPUs? Apps that haven’t been written or those that could really use a boost.

I’m thinking apps that can translate spoken language while it’s being spoken. They work pretty good, but tend to only be able to capture and handle small chunks of data before pausing, processing and displaying the results. It would be great for our little portable devices to be able to just translate a real conversation in real time and display the results.

Make it So!

Long story short. MacBook Pro needed a reinstall of Snow Leopard and since it hasn’t been my week for technology it hit a few bumps, ran over a digital deer and fell into a crater. The availability of the Lion (OS X 10.7) really makes me want to run that on my notebook, but that is really asking for trouble since it’s months away from release.

The testing I’ve done so far with Lion has revealed a couple of necessary apps I use everyday are not functional yet. Which makes me sad as I’m such a upgrade junkie when it comes to updates and especially major versions. I wish Apple would make some improvements to freshen up Finder. Maybe 10.8 will be “We’ve done it again. This time Finder has been upgraded to stupid awesome.”

Update 3/24/2011: MacBook Pro has been revived with a new hard drive and a migration from my old drive.

I’ve got a pretty good collection of photos I’ve collected and am noticing it’ll take a bit of time to go through them. Went through my music collection a while ago, but It’s amazing what we manage to collect.

I got my OnLive MicroConsole setup today and it’s pretty neat. There are a few reviews online and I’ve posted links for a few at the end of this post for those curious about what people are thinking of it.
It gets me to thinking about how many services I can get by just paying a monthly fee. Let’s think about this.

Subscription:
Music: Napster, Zune
Movies: Netflix
TV Shows: Hulu Plus
Games: OnLive

Piecemeal:
Music: Napster, iTunes, Zune, Amazon
Movies: CinemaNow, Vudu, iTunes, Amazon, Blockbuster
Games: Steam, Xbox Live, PlayStation Store

Subscription services that give you full access to their entire streamable / downloadable items tends to be limited in the number of titles. It’s great to get access to so much content with the ability to try something and if you don’t like it move onto the next. I’m not stuck with a $20 movie that I’ll never finish watching. I can listen to and find new music without having to commit based on the cover art or a couple of 30 seconds clips.

I guess the whole thing reminds me of sci-fi shows where there really are not any stores. Everyone just kinda has stuff they need. I don’t recall any of them subscribing and paying a monthly fee. Maybe subscriptions will be the next bubble to burst as people just end up with too many of them to support.

http://technologizer.com/2010/12/01/onlive-microconsole-review/

http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/02/onlive-ushers-in-the-microconsole-with-all-you-can-eat-game-plan/

Desktop computer is finally connected and powered up again. Needs some software setup again, but it’s a good start to have it powered up again.

Spin little fans. Spin!