This is a really awkward thing to discuss so soon after Chloe’s death, but there are several very good reasons to start thinking about her successor. Continue Reading »

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Chloe, our beautiful little mostly-grey dilute calico cat, died earlier tonight at home. My wife had left an hour or so before that for some work-related function, and still isn’t home yet, and I still haven’t been able to reach her. Chloe has been having what we thought were allergy-related breathing problems for about a year now, and we had been treating her regularly, which usually involved force-feeding her some really icky-tasting medicine with an eyedropper. Here recently, however, her breathing problems intensified, and our veterinarian stepped her up to some stronger medicine in pill form. She was due to go back in for a checkup next Tuesday. Continue Reading »

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Good night, little fuzzball.

We’ll always love you. Continue Reading »

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I have this one filed under “Toiling in the Pixel Mines,” where I usually comment about work, only it’s really not about my work, which takes us into a whole other area. I’m a big proponent for the democratization of the media, even though every once in a while the democratization of the media brings us something like Bumfights 3. I think the internet and the MP3 format have begun to level the playing field where music and other audio content, such as podcasts, are concerned, and that’s a good thing; now I’m waiting for the democratization of television. “Cable access” has really become something of an illusion in most communities, and so once again, the internet and broadband will be the deliverers of new televisual talent.

Now, in order to be taken seriously, people need to learn how to make TV work for them. Granted, if we’re talking about stuff that’s going to wind up on an iPod’s screen, maybe there’s a point where you can back off on production values. But data compression does stuff to video that we’ve gotten past with most audio (as I was reminded rather harshly tonight when I posted the latest addition to my work blog). Video for the web and portable platforms is a whole different animal from videotape. But people are still taking the camcorder aesthetic - which really came and went in the popular media with Blair Witch - and applying it to stuff. And there are people who are putting together their own local TV commercials.

It’s this last bit that has me bugged of late. On the one hand, having been a commercial production manager at one of the local stations in the past, I cringe at the thought that what some business owner thinks is going to be a “cost-cutting” measure, bypassing the cost of having someone else produce their spots, is going to wind up backfiring and putting a laughable spot on the air that’ll do more harm than good. I’ve literally seen one local spot that looks like it was shot with someone’s webcam (with no more light than was available from the overhead lights in the room), edited on their PC, and voiced right next to the CPU fan of that PC. The customer testimonials, which are supposed to be heartfelt, wind up looking like they were culled from terrorist ransom tapes. It kinda winds up looking like Manos: The Hands Of Fate 2000.

Message to the business owners of the world: doing stuff like that hurts your message more than it sells it. Trust me. The people running the production departments at your local stations were hired for those positions for a reason. Please, avail yourselves of their knowledge and expertise. Yes, it costs a little bit of money. But it’ll do more for your business than putting something on the air that looks like the last known film of Bigfoot. We might be getting accustomed to stuff on tiny screens and highly compressed web video, but, to be frank, crappiness still shines through.

Trust me on this.

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So I got a bunch of e-mails tonight that I needed to moderate some new comments in my work blog. I still haven’t gone back and closed comment on a lot of the earlier entries I made there, so as expected, what I found were a bunch of comments attached to early entries which were some random user with a Russian e-mail address trying to spam me. Trying to spam me a lot - I think I had to “moderate” 35 of these comments into oblivion. Again, I have to ask…does anyone still feel that spam “comments” with random links to places where you can supposedly get phentermine and sex online somehow falls under the heading of fair commerce or free speech? Nope. This is like someone trying to deliberately attach a live tick to the back of your leg - a live tick waving a huge neon sign. In case anyone wonders why you have to register here, and then wait until I let a comment through for your first comment to appear, that’s why. Argh.

A Chloe update for you…our sick kitty is getting a little bit better, but she’s also driving us nuts. Her appetite has returned, slowly but surely, and she’s starting to gain her weight back. We’ve also discovered the secret to slipping her pills into a tasty treat - apparently vets can get little chicken or fish flavored “pockets” that you slip a pill into, and the cat eats it up and gets her medicine without scratching the crap out of you. Don’t let that innocent little face fool you. Chloe’s got some claws, man.

Now, as for driving us nuts: she’s decided that she doesn’t eat food or drink water in her own bedroom anymore. She goes to the spare bedroom, where Othello snoozes (and where his litterbox, food and water area), and eats and drinks all of his food and water. She’s got a healthy appetite for cat food…so long as it’s his cat food. She’s even taken to sleeping on his bed. I tend to crash out there sometimes, so here lately, I’ve been waking up to find a catfight in progress on my stomach. I’m not quite sure what the message is here, or how this particular problem gets fixed. Or if it gets fixed. Othello has been very kind to Chloe while she’s been sick, but it appears that she’s now feeling frisky enough to take advantage of the situation and drive her big brother out of his room!

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You can now see a short video compilation of them here. And there’s an Easter egg too!

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Quick, how many horses can you spot in this photo? Look very closely. Both of these mares had babies this week, and now we’re up to our hips in silly fillies, which is just the way we like it. Be forewarned, clicking on the “more” link below will flood your screen with cuteness, because these little horses aren’t just cute, they’re almost full-on kawaii. (Also, be warned if you’re not on broadband, as there are nearly two megs of cute baby pictures within.) Continue Reading »

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Any day with a new game in the mail is a good day, methinks. Case in point: this dandy release of the recently discovered Videopac/Odyssey2 prototype of Spider-Man. I’ve been playing it a bit and it’s quite…aggravating! Even the Atari 2600 version of this game got on my nerves something fierce, and the Odyssey2 version is no exception. I’m consistently stunned by what the programmers for this system were able to make it do in its twilight years. I’ll have a more thorough review posted soon, complete with video. I’m also pleased to report that, as advertised, it plays beautifully on a North American O2 console with no audiovisual irregularities that I can detect. Continue Reading »

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