Ultranormal

  • TV Time: The Sopranos

    The season premiere of The Sopranos was on a couple of weeks ago. By now everyone has had the opportunity to see it, right? The most telling of the where-are-they-now bits was the quick scene of Meadow dancing in her underwear in front of the tv. Yea, that relationship isn’t going to last at all. I love how the show portrayed Meadow and Finn’s bad relationship in just 10 seconds.\
    PS- Can you tell I am bored while Kevin is away?

  • Do not disturb

    My husband comes home today- wheeeeeeeeee! But he is coming home sick. And I am sick too. That is how in sync we are with each other.

  • Ceasing the pimpage

    Ok, I am done pimping Veronica Mars.\
    But did you know it is on tonight at 9pm EST on UPN?

  • Geek Conference Network Woes

    This is my third conference in March, and it’s the third one with serious wi-fi issues. What’s the deal? These are not quilting conferences. These are serious nerdfests, where the organizers are expecting lots of geeks with laptops sucking down bandwidth with abandon. If you don’t have that bandwidth, you will have a bunch of very unhappy nerds on your hands.\
    If you’re going to have a technology conference, please invest in good wi-fi, especially if people are paying to attend. Charge a little more, over-provide. Just please, get it right.

  • MIX06 Reactions From Day One

    I’m here in Vegas for . It all started with Bill Gates’ keynote in the morning, and it soon became clear that I was in a different world. I was in not in my world, I was in MicrosoftLand, where everyone has unlimited resources to build web products for everyone else and then build a special IE-only one. Better yet, a Vista-only experience using the Windows Presentation Foundation (for a platform that hasn’t been released yet).\
    Windows Presentation Foundation should make Macromedia very nervous. It’s a Flash-killer baked right into Windows. It looks like it has a lot of really cool features that will suck advertisers in. If I were them, I’d start coming up with some marketing about Flash’s install base and cross-browser/cross-platform attributes.\
    They showed off Atlas, their new Javascript framework that smells a lot like Dojo. That whole presentation, and a lot of the others, felt disingenuous to me. They touted them as innovations when other products have been there first and Microsoft is just taking that work and adding a special Microsoft twist on it. That twist may be innovative, but the ideas aren’t new.\
    There wasn’t enough detail about what’s coming after IE7. IE7 is now layout complete, so if you haven’t gotten the latest beta, go get it. We can be pretty confident that the layout problems we see in the latest build will be the layout problems we see in the final version of IE7, for better or worse. I went to the future of IE panel and got very little new information. It was too generic, too little new info. I want a roadmap for IE that shows when we can expect what new standards support features. I don’t even want dates, because I know that dates are like handcuffs. I just want to know what’s coming. If the IE team doesn’t know yet, tell us.\
    It’s weird being here, at a one-company conference. I’m used to the kind of friendly competitive tension of other conferences. Here? It’s all Kool-Aid all the time, well, except for Marc Canter. Somehow, the guy is the first to ask question (or something that’s more like a rant but might contain a question in it somewhere) in any panel he’s in. Not sure how he does it, or why… but he does.\
    There were some highlights. The new Expression web site creator is very very slick. It creates standards-compliant code and has some amazing CSS refactoring features that should allow relative novices to create really interesting sites fairly easily.

  • Veronica Mars explained!

    Joe isn’t sure what Veronica Mars is about, which needs to be corrected ASAP! Since season 2 isn’t over yet, I will talk mostly about season 1.\
    A quick description: Twin Peaks/noir/Buffy (without the monsters)/Alias (the spying, gadgets, and get-ups; not the physical ass-kicking).\
    The show has a major season-long mystery: who killed Veronica’s best friend. The weekly cases are interesting enough, but it is the frequent clues to the main mystery and the character interactions which brings viewers back for more.\
    Excellent things about the show:\
    Jason Dohring and Harry Hamlin‘s performances. They both deserved Emmys! (In my not-so-humble opinion). Also, the actors who play: Lamb, as the assy sheriff; Wallace, the platonic best-friend (that is just so refreshing!); Dick, the dumb-ass lackey; Cliff, the sleazy lawyer; and Weevil, the local thug, are excellent! Great all-around cast chemistry!\
    The snarkage! The bittersweet! The genuinely tender moments!\
    The soundtrack! The creator, Rob Thomas, just won an Esquire magazine award for the soundtrack: We’re not pointing fingers, but it is entirely possible that Veronica Mars has hacked into our iPod. Calla. Spoon. The Pixies. [snip] The musician-turned-show creator writes with tunes in mind and seamlessly fuses each scene’s emotional tenor with just the right song, making it the only show on television that features Korn, Longwave, and Fountains of Wayne in a single episode.\
    Writing that rewards smart viewers. Examples (from this season): in an attempt to coverup an affair, a woman quickly starts to paint her toenails (to mask the, uh, odors from her previous activities). Veronica plays loud music all night long to cover up noises from the apartment next door. Neither of these things are explicitly mentioned. A casual observer could take both things at face-value and enjoy the show just as much.\
    The lines that get by Standards and Practices: You got a trophy for a rim-job?\
    The mysteries are solved by the end of the season.\
    The writers know their characters, even from the pilot. The audience may be learning more about them, but the writers are not making this up as they go along (yes, Lost, I am looking at you! And Twin Peaks, which sucked after the initial greatness.)\
    The extras and set-designers do an awesome job! One episode will have auditions for a musical and in a later episode, the hallway will contain posters advertising the musical. Yay for smartness!\
    The lightning and camera-work are really cool. Excellent people working behind-the-scenes.\
    The continuity: The gym teacher shows up again! Mrs Murphy! Kaz! Loretta Cancun! Sabrina’s mom! Meg is still the news anchor! Miss Dent’s disappearance is explained. It’s like the writers actually know that the less visible characters have their own lives and keep tabs on them.\
    Veronica Mars is on most tv critics’ top 5 list.\
    Granted, the show isn’t perfect. Like, where was the household staff when the best-friend was killed? Wouldn’t they have seen something? Shelly Pomroy was played by three different actresses. And Paris Hilton guest-starred. Ewww. Simply ewwww. But even she didn’t ruin that episode.\
    So, give it a chance. This year’s mystery is just starting to heat up, so it’s not too late to start watching! It airs on Wednesday at 9pm EST on UPN and again on Sat or Sun (check your local listings) and is re-aired on Tuesday ay 8pm, I think.

  • Nuts!

    Kevin left his nuts at home when he went to Vegas this morning. He asked me to get some cashews for the plane ride, which I did, but then he forgot to pack them. More for me!\
    Also, I am sick with a deep-chested cough that cries out for Nyquil. Yet, I can’t take any since I have the kids to watch. Dayquil just isn’t the same. 🙁 Oh, and the house is a super-wicked mess. Please don’t drop by unannounced without expecting to see a huge ol’ pig stye and me in my purple jammies.

  • Reasons to celebrate!

    Happy St Patrick’s Day everyone. Be extra safe when traveling tonight! Kevin wore his green shirts on Wednesday and Thursday, thus he had none for today. Feel free to pinch him if you see him. (He said it was ok this morning, so I assume he meant it was ok for everyone. Just no pinching the butt, that is my area.)\
    I went shopping as soon as Kevin walked in the door last night and had a mighty fine time. Since I was out and FREE!, I did a bit of window shopping for the living room I want to redecorate. It was fun. I didn’t find what I was looking for, which is off-putting. What if they won’t have it when I am really ready to buy? But I ran into a friend and made a date for me and a separate date for Kevin and the kids. YAY! I also bought some bed-risers for Max’s bed so I can store some of his outgrown clothes under there. Yay for storage!\
    Brian’s second birthday is right around the corner. I feel like we should decorate his room (since we decorated Max’s when he was two and he LOVED it), but I am not sure how to proceed. Should we get bunk beds for the kids and just use them in their separate rooms for right now? Should we keep Brian in his crib a little bit longer?\
    I haven’t seen any Girl Scouts selling cookies this year. What’s up with that? Am I just going to the wrong stores?

  • Out of the mouths of babes…

    Max just told me that “the dad on My Dad the Rockstar is a pain in the ass when it comes to camping.”

    I remember the first time I cussed in front of my mom. I was in jr high and I said, “how the hell am I supposed to know…” (talking about school stuff). We were in the car and we were both shocked that I said “hell.” Max had no such shock and even repeated the phrase when I said, “what did you say?”

  • For those who care…

    Kevin went to the doctor today to have his ankle looked at (he rolled it while in Austin) and his ankle is fine. YAY!