Ain’t it the Gospel Truth
I finished Season One of Mad Med
Feb 27th
Yes, I’m a couple years late to the party – I just recently sat through all the episodes of Mad Men season one and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I avoided the series while it was one because I just didn’t have the time for another weekly series… and I didn’t want to get involved with something in the middle. I had a feeling I would like the show, but I really underestimated just how much I do.
First off, my reaction was – this sure looks a lot like the 1960’s movie of How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. And I’m sure that was an inspiration for the look of the piece. But as it continued on and grew on me and I did some research into what other people were saying about the show, I began to connect to it on a deeper and more nostalgic level.
I spent my early childhood in the 80’s – but in Taiwan. I’d like to think that Taiwan in the 80’s was a lot more like Manhattan in the 60’s. So despite being the MTV generation, my memories of my father as an engineer working along other horn-rimmed glasses wearing shirts with tight cross patterns in the office, closely resembles the art direction of Mad Men. That world and lifestyle was the basis of why I decided to go into business school. It’s considered “nerd chic” by today’s standards… but it was how I remember my father.
And the relationships… the core to any show that wants to stay on the air after the initial “novelty” value wears off. Don Draper is Jay Gatsby, and he does suck you in, but it’s everybody else on the show that keeps you hooked. As much as Draper’s past is interesting, it would have been boring if that was the only thing going on. I don’t think I could say that about House where it’s really the title character and everybody else is just a side show.
A couple critiques against the show that I have read and I will tend to agree with. First off the pacing of each particular episode is very slow. If I were watching this one hour at a time with a week in between, I think I might have bailed. It’s too slow for episodic – it’s marvelous if you can sit down in a few sessions and watch the whole season. Even then there were some episodes that just felt like the story never moved along.
The second critique was the “look how much better we know now” air that the show has. Yes, the first few episodes had quite a few shockers about how the women are treated, their blindness at the long term damage smoking causes, and a bunch of other things that we know much better now (I was waiting for a sucker punch on the Nixon thing, but they played it very historically accurate and classy). But as I’m starting to learn – these little novelty items are always stuffed into the first few shows for titillation and then they back off. I saw it in Californication where the first few episodes were choked full of nudity and then the T&A factor petered away.
I have a lot to ponder as I think about this show and how it affected me… So many subtleties in direction, visual language, story… This isn’t over…
Popularity: 1% [?]
Motherboard up for sale
Feb 3rd
Now it’s come to this… Asus just sent me a new board to replace the one I fried. And now it’s going on eBay.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Adventures in Auto Repair
Jan 21st
A couple days ago I decided to take an adventurous trip through De Luz to take some photographs. I think a couple of them came out of professional quality, most were too blurry. Anyways, being this occurred right after the first monster SoCal storm of the century, there were several small streams across roads in De Luz and crossing these suckers was akin to crossing the Kansas River in Oregon Trail:
Well not quite…
Hmm… should I: A. Find a shallower spot, B. Forge the river, C. Float the wagon and cross, or D. Pay the Ferry
Well A and D are out fo the question, and I left my car floaties in my Mom’s car… only option was to forge this sucker.
And I did… but only after watching another car do the same thing so I knew it was safe.
All in all I came across 4 of these river/streams the last one covering up roughly 100 yards of curving road (relatively shallow just long). But on the second river crossing I did something that I now admit was not the brightest thing in the world to do… I took it going pretty fast. I figured the momentum would carry me across the water without getting stalled half way.
Well the scheme worked… I felt the tires hydroplane through the rushing watery current for a brief quarter of a second before re-emerging on un-submerged asphalt. But my excitement ended when I began to hear a clickity clakity sound… a scraping. I got out of the car, in the light rain, and inspected my tires – they all appeared fine. I drove a bit longer, thinking perhaps it was a branch that got stuck in the undercarriage and that it would go away soon. A few miles more miles and my curiosity got the better of me.
I checked under the car and there it was: a panel had fallen off and I was dragging it along. I tried yanking it out which resulted only in my left hand being smeared in grease. It would not come out. So I surrendered to the idea that I was going to be driving this car back to town dragging a piece of under carriage panel on the ground.
The next day I decided to take the car into the dealership to get the panel replaced. I figured that the Toyota dealership would have the inventory and it would be a quick turn around. It was indeed quick – they actually managed to put the panel back into place and gave me a very nice estimate of all the other things they’d like to do to my car. How considerate of them!
Drove off, went to Walmart and bought a piece of telecommunications technology (which I should spend a post on) and drove home. However, I was not quite successful in the latter… halfway home my car died. I saw an Oil Light, followed by a Check Engine light and the sound of a motor slowly winding to a halt. I tried reigniting but all I heard was the sound of the starter mocking me from the engine compartment.
We towed to a mechanic that my family has used for years. I left the key in the ignition. Worried that some one my steal it, I quickly realized the delicious irony of a theif trying to drive off in a car that won’t start…
Without I ride, I was able to beg and plead one off of my friend Joe – who was working at the music store only 3 blocks away. The walk there was a cold one but luckily not a wet one.
I spend the night dreading the cost of the repair – the thought that my water forging excursion had somehow destroyed the fuel line (Toyota in their inspection said it was dented) and that I would need to overhaul the whole thing.
But I was happy to get the call in the morning from the shop. The timing belt snapped.
Whew… just the timing belt. Wow. I’d never thought I would be happy about that…
I okayed the repair of the belt and also new brakes (they were down to zero). Let’s hope that this is the end of this story. My experience with the computer has shown that sometimes there’s more to it, but, God willing, may this be the end of it.
Popularity: 7% [?]
Bent CPU pins
Jan 15th
I’m going to try to condense this long story into a relatively short one.
I bought a $300 motherboard from NewEgg. Installed it and the Power Supply did something nutty to it. It wouldn’t boot, so I sent the board back to NewEgg. NewEgg said it was voided warranty because it had bent CPU pins. I had to buy a new board, which I bought from Fry’s.
I installed the new board from Fry’s – it booted fine, except there was RAM missing. I found a bent pin and I bent it back into shape and everything seems to be working.
Got the damaged Motherboard back in the mail… noticed a couple bent cpu pins… so I carefully bent them back.
I called ASUS (which is pronounced ASOUS… weird… considering their name came from the last four letters of Pegasus) and I got an RMA from them. So I’m going to send the board back to the manufacturer and see if they’ll give me a new one.
Which I intend to sell…
But before I do that, I took some pictures. I wonder if they’ll say I have bent pins…. There’s a shadow in the middle of the bottom half – but I think the pin itself is fine.
Right Click on the pic, and select “Open with New Window” to see the picture in all it’s 6.3 megapixel glory.
Popularity: 10% [?]
Feeling up Emily
Jan 7th
First real go at editing Emily:
Forum Posting at the IQ:
http://filmmakeriq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=2134
Popularity: 8% [?]