Caddickisms

Free business cards! That’s pretty cool. Via the excellent Parent Hacks site (see below) I’ve now found two online printing companies that will print business cards for free. You have to pay shipping/handling charges, which probably amount to about $5, but that’s not bad.

The two sites are VistaPrint and ooprint. VistaPrint.com provides 42 design options and 250 cards, while ooprint.com provides 32 options and 100 cards.

Obviously this is a benefit for small (very small) businesses, and they’re hoping to get you to print more with them. However, as Parent Hacks points out, there are other reasons to use business cards beyond the obvious:

Free(ish) family business cards simplify playdates and more: Parent Hacks

We use them to facilitate playdate set-up, as a quick reference for babysitters (in addition to our list of emergency info), as luggage tags and I put one in the back pocket of each kid when we go to crowded venues.

That’s a pretty smart idea. Good thinking. Here’s another idea: use them when you move into a new neighborhood to give to your new neighbors. I know I am terrible with names and it would benefit me to see names written down, plus the process of exchanging phone numbers would be much easier. The same would apply for attending a new church, or social gathering, even if you’re single.

Heh… if you’re single, you could give them out to potential dates; or if you’re desperate, just leave them lying around in malls or bars…

Technorati Tags: business cards, free items, parenting, personal finance, personal marketing, small business tips

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Got caught up on some stuff tonight:

Chuck: Entertaining. Pretty light. I’ll see if it pulls me in more, but it seems like one of those shows that I’ll catch if I happen to see it on.

Bionic Woman: Certainly grittier than the original. They did some cool stuff. The scene in the hospital when she first wakes up was pretty cool. It has some interesting stuff in it, and I can see how they could make it very involved. As a one shot pilot… eh. I wasn’t on the edge of my seat at the end. And I kept waiting for someone to say he was Oscar Gordon.

Smallville: Good stuff. Nice wrap up of the season finale cliffhanger. Still left some open ended questions. I did think the introduction of Kara was a little confusing, but I’m assuming they’ll iron that out shortly. Can’t wait to see what happened to Lionel. Want to hear more about Chloe’s power. Lana… big shock. NOT. Preview makes the season look promising. Looks like Clark is finally going to get some serious training! Lex? Well…. I doubt he’ll reform for more than 1 episode. He’s gotta go over the edge this year.

Technorati Tags: fall premieres, chuck, bionic woman, smallville, superman

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I’ll be jotting down my initial thoughts of the shows I watch that premiere this week.

Tonight, I intended to watch the NBC shows Chuck, Heroes, and Journeyman. I missed Chuck, but taped it so I may comment on it later.

Heroes: I loved season 1. This episode had a hard job in picking up and reintroducing a large cast of characters, plus adding new ones. As a result, this would likely have confused anyone not already familiar with the show. However, my thoughts were:

• how the heck is Nathan alive?
• I really want to know more about Hiro’s father’s powers. Very disappointed in how that seems to be turning out.
• I’m intrigued.

Journeyman: I love time travel stories. My thoughts:

• Somebody should fire the sound mixer. Half the time I couldn’t make out the conversations because of competing sounds or music.
• Mostly bored for the first 25 minutes.
• Totally got my interest when Olivia showed up in the hallway. Unfortunately I couldn’t make out everything she said to him in the stupid stairwell!
• Looks like they might throw in some conspiracy stuff.
• Not an incredibly strong premiere, but good enough to get me in for a few more episodes.

Next up: catch up on Chuck, then on to Bionic Woman on Wednesday.

Technorati Tags: tv, fall premiere, heroes, journeyman

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“Justice League of America” Moves Forward - Slice of Scifi

I’m sorry. I just can’t picture this movie being made well any time in the next 5 years.

As I said in a previous post, there are just too many big characters to adequately pull something off with enough weight on each character, developmentally. Plus you’ve got the casting problem:

Of course the big question is — Can Warner get Brandon Routh and Christian Bale to play Superman and Batman for this project, or will they settle for other actors? The problem with getting others for the role is credibility. There is no question in any fan’s mind that Routh and Bale now own those roles. And Warner has to be asking themselves how readily fans might accept others in those costumes.

Sounds like Routh and Bale aren’t that interested in the roles in the new film, either. And I can’t say I blame them. They’re spending a lot of energy to get those characters right in their own films, with strong directors and (mostly) strong scripts. It’s a big risk to go into a difficult ensemble piece and risk watering those characters down. What if Batman comes off too light in the Justice League film? Will that hurt the stand-alone series and make it harder to get new viewers? It could.

As much as I’d like to see a Justice League done right, I don’t think it’s going to happen. I hope they prove me wrong, but I doubt it.

Technorati Tags: justice league, movie, comics adaptation, superman, batman, wonder woman

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In the last month or so, it seems like Murphy is camped on my front step.

• Computer - dead. Motherboard, presumably, is fried, based on research.
• Car inspection - over $500 more than expected in repairs.
• VCR - dead.  Yes, I still had one. No I don’t have a DVR. I don’t have digital cable either.
• Wife’s TV - extremely unreliable, verging on death. Picture fades to black for long stretches.
• Three extra trips to the lab for wife’s newly diagnosed chronic condition (in addition to the chronic condition we both already have).
• Medicine for that condition.
• $600 in further repairs for same car in one month.
• Shocks are shot in the other car.

So what am I doing about this stuff?

• Car repairs - Paying for it, of course. No choice in the matter. The only thing I’m doing is putting off repairing the shocks, since I only use that car to get back and forth to work. One more repair and I’ll have no choice but to buy a new car, which is way outside of reality at the moment. These cars each have to last me another 5 years if I can help it.
• VCR - nothing. Wife has a VCR we can use in the meantime (though it’s virtually featureless, it has the benefit of working.)
• Medical stuff - again, paying for it. No choice. At least I can work out payment plans for much of it, though that mostly just extends the pain.
• Computer - trying desparately to save enough to buy a new(er) one that won’t be obsolete in a month and a half. Best price so far is $600 that I don’t have. Last time I saved that much discretionary cash it took me well over a year. The above problems aren’t helping.

What have I learned from this?

• It’s easy to blow through your emergency fund. Make it as large as possible.
• Preventative maintenance should always be considered (a tune-up a while ago might have saved me some of this latest car cost).
• The health care system is way too expensive.
• I can get away with not having my own computer for a couple months, but it takes a lot more organization, and access to the internet through some work computers (for online banking, email, and this blog mostly). If I couldn’t do that, I’d be sunk. I seriously miss Quicken, though. What I can’t do is empty the memory stick in my camera (which is also broken, btw - the camera, not the stick), or get the existing pictures off my old computer, or work on my musical hobbies.

I had an unexpected influx of cash recently, which is extremely helpful. Instead of helping to get me out of debt, though, as it was intended, it’s just keeping me from going farther into debt. Still good, though. Excellent timing in that regard.

(Btw, this post isn’t meant to be looking for pity; I understand I’m still in a way better situation that many folks. This is just a venting and reflection post.)

What curveballs has life thrown at you lately? What have you learned from it? If you’re comfortable doing so, please leave a comment.

Technorati Tags: personal finance, murphy’s law, life lessons

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At first glance, Laws of Attraction is a typical romantic comedy. Guy and girl meet, they don’t get along, then they’re stuck together, then they fall in love. The difference here is in how the relationship is handled. This is not the standard RomCom. It’s got all the elements, including over-the-top secondary characters, but the way the lead characters (Pierce Brosnan and Julianne Moore) interact is much more real than in most movies of this type. You get the impression that these could be real people, not the cardboard cutouts we’re used to seeing on screen, despite the way it probably appeared on the page.

I give most of that credit to the director and actors. The script was okay, but not stupendous. I give it credit in that it uses a divorce lawyer who believes in marriage, and his point of view becomes a strong message in the film. The point is that you have to fight, and remain committed, through the rough times in a marriage. That’s a sensibility that is all too often forgotten in today’s world of instant gratification and “what have you done for me lately” attitudes.

I found it interesting that they cut two scenes that would have pulled the film back toward the typical RomCom category. Though both deleted scenes were good, if the director’s intent was, as I suspect, to keep it closer to reality and avoid the easy tricks, I think he made good choices in dropping them. One was the competitive race across the field to the castle that I could feel coming in the film, and was surprised when it didn’t arrive, and the other was the storybook Irish countryside ending. Both are included in the DVD as extras, and they were fun to watch and well done, but I really think the right choice was made in not choosing the easy path. I think the movie was better for it.

Unfortunately, despite how much I liked the overall tone and many individual scenes, something was off. I’m pretty sure it was the writing, or maybe the editing, but it just didn’t flow as well as I’d hoped. A few scenes seemed out of place, or forced in there, or just not stitched together cleanly enough. I can’t come up with any specific examples, but it just didn’t flow evenly.

I’d like to give it more, because I really liked the message and the lack of saccharine, but I have to stop at three stars.

Technorati Tags: Pierce Brosnan, Julianne Moore, romantic comedy, movie review, marriage, love, New York City, Ireland

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‘Highlander: The Source’ Final Nail in Franchise Coffin - OhmyNews International

I just had to pick a few of the favorite quotes from this review. Most of the reviews I’ve read recently have been profanity-laced, but all share the same emotion.

They’ve taken something that was once rousing and inventive and now have officially driven it right into the ground. … effects that are anything but special, and a bulky villain character that literally zips around the movie like a dime store version of the Flash and spits out Jim Carrey-like dialogue more suited for “Ace Ventura 3″ (I know the Kurgan, and the Guardian is no Kurgan), it’s a miracle that Paul can even stand in the same frame with this malarkey without getting nauseous. … Stripped of all sense of sword-wielding regality and epic posturing of emotions, “The Source” is nothing less than a parody of what has come before. If you’ve seen the previous sequels, you already know that’s saying something. There is some relief that this franchise will finally be put out of its misery, because nobody in their right mind would try to keep this series going after watching just how boneheaded “Highlander: The Source” is.

If this movie were the inevitable conclusion to the series, it would have been better for the series not to have existed. It sucked every last remaining bit of fun out of the Highlander series. I’m not even sure I can enjoy reading the comic anymore.

Technorati Tags: Highlander, Adrian Paul, bad movies, reviews

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In any Highlander movie, it’s expected: heads will roll. In this case, though, it should have been heads of the film’s creators.

Why would you go and make a movie, probably the last one the Highlander series will ever see, that sucks this badly?

The script was all but incoherent, none of the characters were sympathetic or even well-realized, and the fight scenes, with possibly one exception, were more special effect than skill.

This movie was right up (down?) there with Highlander 2, the almost universally shunned entry in the series.

The basic outline of the script, from what I could understand, was this: in the undetermined, but not too distant (because Joe isn’t much older than in the TV show), future, there are five immortals left, and they are seeking “the Source”. The Source is not really that well defined, but it’s got something to do with planets aligning and is involved with immortals and “the Prize” — and apparently it makes you move like someone pressed the fast-forward button on you. The Prize is what you get when you’re the last immortal standing.

Though you’re an idiot if you sit through this movie after it’s initial run, when there was some small hope it might be decent, I still feel I now need to issue a…

SPOILER ALERT ::SPOILER ALERT ::SPOILER ALERT ::SPOILER ALERT ::SPOILER ALERT ::SPOILER ALERT

SPOILER ALERT ::SPOILER ALERT ::SPOILER ALERT ::SPOILER ALERT ::SPOILER ALERT ::SPOILER ALERT

SPOILER ALERT ::SPOILER ALERT ::SPOILER ALERT ::SPOILER ALERT ::SPOILER ALERT ::SPOILER ALERT

In previous movies, the Prize has been that you “know everything” and that you get to become mortal. This time, with no sword fight worth mentioning, you just get to be the only immortal who can have a child. Not a bad prize, honestly, if the setup is done correctly, but it wasn’t. We don’t have any sense from this film that Duncan even wants to have a child, for one thing. We just know he’s “gone bad” because his wife left him over his inability to do so. And we really don’t care about any of the characters in this film enough to worry about it, anyway.

The effects of the planets lining up was cool looking but seriously… what planet are we supposed to be on? Certainly not Earth. I’ve never even seen the moon that big in the sky, let alone other planets and some sort of comet-looking things going in circles. And they’re all moving fast enough to be observably moving to the naked eye?! What the heck are you thinking, effects guys?

So far, I haven’t tried to put this movie in context with other established canon. It just stunk on its own merits. But when you compare this to what’s already known and available in terms of plot…. okay, there’s nothing actually contradicting anything established (except the planets in the sky, which immediately removes this from known reality). And if you insert a LOT of knowledge about the characters derived from the TV show (Duncan, Joe, and Methos), you could care about those people a bit. But this film was so far out of line with what has come before, tonally, that it is almost disconnected completely. No flashbacks, no fun (did anybody even crack a smile in this movie?), no moral dilemmas, and no well-executed (pardon the pun) sword fights. And no grounding in the familiar. That’s an important point. Since this takes place in an apocalyptic, cannibalistic future, there is nothing familiar for the audience to relate to. Part of the fun of the Highlander series is imagining that this is all going on in the present day; some unknown excitement in the mundane world in which we live. Sadly, the only films to ever get that right were the original and Endgame. The TV show took the concept and ran with it, enhancing and elevating the series in the process. This film takes what the TV show built and cuts its head off.

That’s what I really don’t understand… how can the TV show have done such a good job at putting stories together, and yet they can’t put a decent movie together to save their lives?

One star. And it’s charity.

Technorati Tags: Adrian Paul, Highlander, sword fighting, immortality, apocalypse, bad movies

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Apple - Trailers - Iron Man - Trailer - Large

Hey, the trailer for the May 2008 movie is out! Looks good, but I’m not totally sold yet. I’m a little unclear on the story. Seems like this trailer just focused on origins and some beauty shots. No conflict. Nothing story-wise, really.

I like Favreau’s style, but it better have a good script.

(Want more? Check this out.)

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TED | Talks | Blaise Aguera y Arcas: Jaw-dropping Photosynth demo (video)

Click through. Now. Read the rest of this when you get back. Just don’t forget to come back. (FYI: you may have problems behind a firewall… I did)

This is one of the biggest breakthroughs in collective consciousness, collaboration, and visual relationships I can think of. Seriously, this is an amazing tool.

The first tool, Seadragon, is impressive enough. Amazing, smooth, manipulation of images of various depths, and even of non-image data (there’s a whole book in there!). Just the example of the fake ad they put into the newspaper could revolutionize the way advertising companies build their products - it appears that you could build an almost infinite depth to the detail you can provide.

The second tool, however, builds on the strengths of the first and then explodes the possibilities in almost incalculable ways. Photosynth can take the images lying around on the web (they used Notre Dame images from Flickr as the source for their example) relate them to each other, and provide a virtually seamless 3-dimensional tour of the subject, with details limited only by the photos themselves.

Imagine that 4000 tourists took pictures of the Sistine Chapel, at various zooms and angles, on various types of cameras, and each of them posted to the web. With Photosynth, we can come along and let someone sitting at his computer in Bumblyberg, USA take a 360 degree tour of the Chapel, and zoom in and out to see details at will.

Now extend the idea to someone wearing a virtual reality helmet. They could actually walk through the Sistine Chapel and even fly right up to the artwork. And the visuals wouldn’t be the result of modeling by a graphic artist, like in a video game, or in Second Life - they would be full color photos seamlessly stitched together. (and to go really wild, keep extending the idea and you end up with something akin to the Holodecks on Star Trek.)

Speaking of Second Life, if we could integrate Photosynth with that, your avatar could do the same thing as I just described. I’d imagine that to be an easier accomplishment than the virtual reality thing, but I don’t really know.

If you work as a travel agent, you could send someone on a preview of their trip! But the uses go way beyond tourism. Imagine using it as a training tool. Exploring the ins and outs of a Non-Heatset Press - with the right photos and planning, you could go create an amazing training session for a press operator, letting him see the press as he never could before without taking it off-line. You could probably even overlay schematics. Or create a tour of your manufacturing plant for your clients, letting them explore at will rather than following a video.

History teachers could let their students explore the ruins of the Parthenon in Athens…. I can’t stop thinking of ways this could be used.

What uses can you come up with? What avenues for collaboration does this open up?

(if you didn’t take my advice and click through in the beginning… do it now! What are you waiting for?!)

Technorati Tags: technology, images, collaboration, web2.0, flickr, photosynth, second life, training, TED, microsoft

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