Just a bunch of links that I’ve picked up in the last week or 2 that interested me…

Drawn! is a new group blog about illustration, art, and cartooning:
http://www.drawn.ca/

Stephen Colbert, from The Daily Show, interview:
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/002407.php

80’s TV Commercials:
http://www.x-entertainment.com/downloads/

Build your own magnetic spice rack:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43894-2004May20.html

Interesting Science Friday:
http://www.sciencefriday.com/pages/2005/Mar/hour2_031105.html

A “downloadable TV show” mentioned on Slashdot:
http://slashdot.org/articles/05/03/17/1322246.shtml?tid=129&tid=155

Some sort of online, short film recommended to me by Pukka:
http://www.delivery.framebox.de/

Ain’t It Cool News visits Pixar:
http://www.aintitcoolnews.com/display.cgi?id=19658#1

Wicked Cool Latte Art, links via Boing Boing
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tonx/sets/48921/
http://www.latteart.org/latteart.htm

Camera Hacks is a community website to share tips/tricks/tutorials/links to info on cameras (digital or film):
http://camerahacks.com/

I also happened to catch tonight’s CSI and while I enjoyed it; I did feel somewhat cheated. See, Wil Wheaton was one of tonight’s guest stars and since I regular read Mr. Wheaton’s blog I’d been rather looking forward to this episode. Unfortunately, Mr. Wheaton really only seemed to get a very few minutes in front of the camera and while I did enjoy the performance… I guess I was expecting more. More what exactly, I’m not entirely sure but I suppose I was hoping to see Mr. Wheaton have a chance to really get into his role on the screen. *shrug* Ah well, nice work Mr. Wheaton and here’s hoping that this leads to more jobs for you!

The Doctor

Earlier this week the first episode of the new Doctor Who series, by the BBC, was leaked onto the internet. I was able to obtain a copy and give it a quick whirl1. I have to say that I’ve not enjoyed watched the Doctor so much since Tom Baker played him and while I still miss that massive scarf; the new Doctor’s look suits very well. At least from what one can tell in a ~40 minute episode, Mr. Eccleston seems to have captured that playfully annoying essence which is so esstenial to portraying the Doctor properly. I look forward to seeing more of this new season and hope that it will be quickly released to DVD (to make it easier to get here in the States).

1 Actually, it wasn’t all that quick as I was trying to figure a way to make the AVI file into a SVCD. I came really close with Tovid but the quality wasn’t all that great to begin with and the video was totally corrupted towards the end. Still, I did get a lot closer with Tovid’s CLI tools than with Tovid GUI, so maybe with some more work I can figure this out. That’d be great as I’d really like to burn some quick&dirty SVCDs using CD-RWs to watch various downloads on my real TV rather than my PC. What can I say, the futon is way more comfortable than my desk chair.

Back in his ST:TNG days, I couldn’t stand Wesley Crusher. Fortunately, as an author Wil Wheaton is much more interesting and the annoyance level is way, way, way down. 🙂 Earlier today, Wil mentioned on his blog that TV Guide is running a poll asking various questions about Star Trek. One of the questions on the poll is “Who was the most annoying character?” and as one can easily imagine Ensign Wesley Course laid in, sir. Crusher in one of the options for that question.

If you decided to take the poll, you can be harsh and pick Wesley for that question…. Or you can rise about your sad, pathetic life in your parent’s basement and forgive Wil for the bad lines he was given, not to mention for the fact that he was the one on ST:TNG and not you. Just make up your mind quickly, I hear your Mom yelling at you to take out the garbage.

P.S. Personally, I picked Lwaxana Troi for that question. Good grief, she made everybody miserable every time she showed up and she wasn’t even a villian!

*Grumpf* is my word for when I’m feeling just a slightly bit grouchy. Not enough to make me want to rip people’s heads off, but enough that I’m less than enthusiastic about Life, the Universe and Everything. Of course, feeling *grumpf* today is mostly my own fault. I’ve been staying up far too late: reading, playing on the computer and what not. But it’s also work’s fault; what with the recent changes and all.1 Then for an extra kick in the chops, I finished the book I was reading and went to grab the next one in the series for something to read over my lunch hour.2 Naturally, I can find books 3, 4 & 5 but not book 2. *grumpf*

Still, today’s not been all bad. While searching for book 2; I did run across some Discworld books that I’d forgotten I had and those will give me something to read for the next couple of days. Maybe even enough to get me through to the weekend, when I might rip the house apart to find book 2. *shrug* I hate having to stop reading in the middle of the series. Particularly, when I know I have the next book. But I’m trying to focus on the good things about today here; so that’s enough of that. Umm, tonight was the monthly Mindbridge meeting. It appears now that I have officially taken over their webmaster duties. Spif. Now I just need to finalize our plans regarding the hosting and what I’ll be basing their site on. As mentioned in previous postings, their current site is a nightmare of M$ FrontPage generated vomit and since I’m a lazy git; I want to implement a CMS. Of course, I also need to know what all they want out of the site and if they want to merge their Yahoo! group into the real site or to keep that seperate. It’ll be a lot of work, but I’m oddly looking forward to it, even –and this is the kicker– in my *grumpf* mood. Anyway, that’s enough for tonight; so good night inkernet  vast repository of porn  all you people out there in TV land. Ah screw it, stop reading this drivel and go get yourself some sleep.

1 I’m not really going to get into it further here; as I need to keep my job. So let is suffice to say some people have left the company recently due to changes that are a result in the company having been bought out. I respect their decision and somewhat wish I could take the moral high ground with them. However, I’m in a 2 person household with a 1 person income and plenty of bills; so that’s not really an option for me. *grumpf*
2 Sometimes I surf the internet. Other times I play video games. Occassionally I’ll watch some anime, but lately I’ve been really enjoying kicking up my feet and reading in peace & quiet. *sigh*