Caddickisms » Flash

Jump through classic video games

Jeff — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 03:12:52 +0000

This is pretty old, but then the subject is even older! It’s a fun look at the (mostly) 80s video games.

How many video games can you identify? There were sadly quite a few I didn’t recognize.

If you want to see some other stuff, check out Grand Master Peter’s Flash movies.

Return to MidMo and other short subjects

Jeff — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 21:58:57 +0000

My second guest shot on the Midnight Movie Club was posted this week, reviewing the film “Return To Me” (with a stellar cast led by David Duchovny and Minnie Driver – in the movie, not the podcast). If the stats are accurate, many of you missed this film when it came out in 2000 (though the odds are apparently better if you were in an airplane around then). That’s a shame because it’s a great movie. You really should rent it. You won’t be disappointed. In any event, go listen to the podcast and hear Lee and I wax philosophical about such barely relevant topics as insurance forms for sex addicts, and how much acting ability is necessary to overcome being a complete whack job in real life.

In other news, I saw a couple of movies recently – one new, and one older.

Iron Man 2 was very good. It seemed almost on par with the first installment to me. Some things I liked better, some things I didn’t. Still a very fun ride, though.

Pixar’s Cars was a mixed bag for me. I liked it, but I’ve got to put it at the bottom of the Pixar pile. For a movie about race cars, it was kinda slow. I know I’m blowing against the prevailing winds since just about everybody I know puts Cars at or near the top of the Pixar list, but it didn’t grab me the same way the others did, and my kids were mostly bored.

In future movie news, the live-action feature release of Green Lantern – not scheduled to open until June 17, 2011 – has already been scheduled for a sequel with the same writing team. That team has also been scheduled to write a new movie about The Flash. It’s unclear whether the Green Lantern sequel or Flash film will be the next on the production line. I really hope this approval and trust is based on what they’ve already seen and not on wishful thinking. I really, really, really want to love the Green Lantern movie.

Looking back to the past, some guy has collected over 3000 classic lunch boxes. He says he has all but about 8 that were ever produced. That is some serious collecting. Here’s one of them:

Hey, kids! Just dropping by to kill you and your swell daggit!

That’s even cheesier than the show it’s based on!

In TV news, Tom Welling has said that next season will be the last for Smallville. I’ve heard that before, but this time I believe it. Chloe, the only original character left in the show, will only be a recurring character next season. Will Clark put on the suit his mom made for him by the end of the season? We’ll see.

After the excellent “Children of Earth” miniseries last year, Torchwood has finally been confirmed to return… but not until next year, and with only 10 episodes. This will also likely be its final season. Rather than centering in Wales, it will be a much more globe trotting season with higher stakes and a huge ending. Jack and Gwen are returning. I’m really looking forward to it.

Finally, this news is a few months old, but I think it’s one of the greatest Hollywood news stories lately: the guy who wrote the John Travolta stink-bomb “Battlefield Earth” has apologized. He also had this to say:

Actually, comparing it to a train wreck isn’t really fair to train wrecks, because people actually want to watch those. … Now, looking back at the movie with fresh eyes, I can’t help but be strangely proud of it. Because out of all the sucky movies, mine is the suckiest.

You just gotta appreciate the honesty.

Spider-man dances (and so does The Flash)

Jeff — Wed, 12 May 2010 17:49:58 +0000

No one has written a super-hero theme song yet that beats the one from the 60s Spider-man cartoon. Don’t get me wrong, there have been some great themes written, but Spider-man’s is the swinging-est.

Over the years, a few versions have been recorded, but this is probably my favorite update. And the dancing is actually pretty cool, too. I think these guys do a great job.

Then there’s this… yeah, the dancing sucks, but The Flash shows up and the end is really funny. I haven’t laughed that hard in a while.

Free web conferencing – ups and downs

Jeff — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 01:40:59 +0000

I wanted to follow up on a couple of posts I made (long ago) about web conferencing. Figured it was about time I got back to it.

I had the occasion to use two services last night: Vyew, and DimDim. I’ll summarize my experiences below.

This was the first time I’d tried Vyew. It’s a Flash-based service so there is no software to install (unless you want to share your desktop, which requires a Java applet to run). Vyew actually has a lot of great features for collaboration, centered primarily around a “book” concept, where you add (import) documents or presentations and/or insert text on a white-board, and annotate the heck out of it. There really are some nice annotation tools to work with. Everything is saved so when you leave and come back in a new session everything is where you left it. You can also work synchronously or asynchronously, which can be a bonus – especially when you’re working with people in a different time zone.

Desktop sharing is a very important piece of conferencing for me. Most collaboration I do is centered around helping someone with a computer- or web-related problem and being able to see what they are doing on their screen is invaluable. For this purpose, Vyew works in a pinch, but I don’t think I’d use it again unless I was in a situation where you absolutely couldn’t install anything on the other person’s machine. The picture is a little bit fuzzy (not bad, but noticeable), and from the start, the delay between screen refreshes left me at least 2 seconds behind what the other person was doing. After a while (maybe 45 minutes) that gap increased, until it wasn’t refreshing at all, even after stopping and restarting the applet, and logging out and back into Vyew entirely. That problem caused a long pause in our actual work while we tried to diagnose and fix the issue, until I eventually gave up and moved to DimDim. Lots of wasted time.

DimDim, on the other hand, doesn’t have quite as many nice annotation/collaboration features as Vyew, but it does have the basics – and does them well – and the desktop sharing is exceptional. You do have to install a small app for desktop sharing, which can be problematic if there are restrictions on the ‘client’ machine, or the person on that end has difficulty with computers. Once it’s running, though, there is minimal definable delay and the screen is completely clear. After we got moving on DimDim last night, the conferencing tool was an after-thought – exactly as it should be.

One negative thing about DimDim is that it fully enforces the “meeting length” you set before you launch the meeting. The default is 2 hours. Once you hit that time, everything disconnects with no warning time or ability to lengthen the session. Very annoying if you’re running over the planned time and have to relaunch and reinvite all the participants.

Both of these options support desktop and application sharing, but neither supports remote control (where I can request control of the participant’s desktop and work directly on their machine). They’re free, so I’m not too bent out of shape about that, but it would be nice to have that integrated. If I do want that option, I generally go with LogMeIn Free, which requires a client installation. There are other options, like the open-source Real VNC (also see below), but I think LogMeIn is a little easier in terms of user-friendliness.

I did consider one other service last night: Yugma. It requires an installation as well, and looks good, but I saw a lot of negative comments on its Skype-enabled version and ended up skipping it. I was trying to go with no installations last night or I would have tested that one instead of Vyew. I still may give that one a run in the future.

As a bonus, I also ran across this list of remote-control applications. I haven’t checked them all out, but I wanted to capture this for future reference and edification…

Apart from the usual VNC versions (each with varying mix of features)

http://sourceforge.net/projects/echovnc/
http://realvnc.com/
http://www.tightvnc.com/
http://uvnc.com/

Free for web conferencing between 2 people.
http://www.webtrain.com/

Free for non-commercial, personal use
http://teamviewer.com/

Free – IPN (Instant Private Network)
http://www.remobo.com/

Anybody have similar apps they want to share for web conferencing and/or remote control? I’m always on the lookout for good services like these.

Superman Returns, but not as expected

Jeff — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 01:17:50 +0000

Warner will follow Marvel model to develop new superhero films : Slice of SciFi

Superman Returns darker

Ever since Superman Returns was released, rumors were flying about the sequel. Would it happen? Would Bryan Singer return to helm it? Would anybody watch it?

Not long ago (May 7th, in fact), we were hearing that Bryan Singer would be getting Superman: The Man of Steel to theaters in 2009 with wall-to-wall action in a sequel to Returns. Personally, I was pretty happy with that news. I really think Singer knows how to pull off a movie that’s both intelligent and action-packed, and respects the source material.

But now we hear that in the wake of the success of The Dark Knight, Warner Bros. will be putting a darker focus on all its superhero properties.

For fans, this means that the sequel to “Superman Returns” won’t be happening. Instead, the studio will look to take a page from this year’s “Incredible Hulk” and reboot the franchise. Part of this is a need to freshen the franchise, but part of this can also be attributed to the fact that “Returns” struggled to make back the investment Warner Brothers put into the movie.

[...]

Mr. Robinov wants his next pack of superhero movies to be bathed in the same brooding tone as “The Dark Knight.” Creatively, he sees exploring the evil side to characters as the key to unlocking some of Warner Bros.’ DC properties. “We’re going to try to go dark to the extent that the characters allow it,” he says. That goes for the company’s Superman franchise as well.

That’s disappointing. While I get treating superhero movies as real world and serious is important in creating believability, forcing a dark tone on everything is, I think, a mistake. It’s completely appropriate for Batman, but Superman’s main character traits are hope and optimism, and a bit of naiveté (at least on the surface). It is possible to go darker with him temporarily – and I think it could be done really well – but I really think it has to be in a sequel to be good. The character has to be developed as an incorruptible, “thank God he’s here” kind of character.

Plus, I gotta imagine this new direction means a significant delay before the Boy Scout graces the screen again. So that annoys me, too.

On a side note, the linked article also mentions the other properties under development: Green Lantern, Flash, Green Arrow, and Wonder Woman. I’m excited about each of them. All could translate very well to the big screen.