Rick's World

Hell yeah!

Last night, like a good little geek, I went to the midnight showing of X-Men 3. It was well worth it! The movie was great! This movie was everything I hoped for. The movie had seemingly endless special effects, more mutant cameos than I could even keep track of, and lots of action. The movie starts off fast and doesn't stop for the entire movie. If I had any complaint it would be that the movie moved toofast. It was almost like they rushed things to cram as much in as possible. The movie was also a lot more 'adult' than I expected. There was swearing, a borderline sex scene, some almost nudity, and lots of intense action. A movie well worth seeing. This movie will do very well this year. I expect it will easily beat the money earned on the previous two.

One more little hint. Don't leave the theater when the credits start at the end. After all the credits are done, there's one more short scene that you have to see. I won't give away what, but it will be worth it.

Link: https://www.x-menthelaststand.com/

Last week, Apple released their new 'consumer-grade' laptop - the MacBook. So like any good Apple nut, I made a trip down to the Apple store to take a look. Here are my thoughts after a brief encounter with it.

Visually, the laptop looks pretty good. It's nice and thin. It has an Intel Core Duo processor. This means, this little 'cheap' laptop essentially has two processors. A very nice feature for a low end model. At 2Ghz per processor, it is sure to be a quite capable machine. It also has a feature that I really like, and I'm sure other will too. This is the user upgradable hard drive! This is the first laptop I've seen where you can easily swap out the hard drive. This means that you are not forced to play expensive Apple prices if you want to upgrade the hard drive at a later time. Plus, you can throw in any laptop hard drive you can find in the thing, so you could potentially upgrade it beyond the 'officially sanctioned' Apple standards. A very nice feature.

Another nice feature is the 'Mag-save' power plug. I like this design. It's a very small, lightweight plug that plugs into the side of the computer. It plugs into the computer by way of a magnet holding it in place. It's a nice feature because if you can get that plug pretty close to the laptop, it practically 'plugs itself in' because the magnet sucks the plug in the rest of the way. Plus, it easily pops out so you can't yank the laptop off the desk by way of the power cable.

I have to say that the color of the cases, both the white and the black are quite nice. I was rather expecting the black case to look like a typical, boring black laptop, but it actually looks quite nice. The Apple logo on the top of the case is a nice touch too. When the laptop is closed the Apple logo is not lit up. As soon as you open the case, it lights up. A neat little touch. Now for the things I didn't like...

I'm not sure I like the keyboard. It has an odd 'chicklet' style keyboard. The keyboard buttons remind me more of the buttons on a cheap handheld calculator, then on a good laptop. Also, the keyboard seemed a little off-center. It almost seemed like what should be the center of the keyboard was more off to the right. It feels a bit weird to someone like me who is a fast typist.

The screen is a bit odd too. From what I understand there are two types of screens on the MacBook - the glossy screen and the standard screen. I suspect the one I was trying had the glossy screen. This means that the screen has a very shiny, reflective coating on the front. This strikes me as a bad thing because it was constantly reflecting the overhead lights. It was distracting. If I were to buy one of these, I would have to go for the non-glossy screen.

Another thing I didn't like was the video chip they choose to put into it. It uses an onboard, low-end Intel video chip, rather than the much more capable ATI video chip in the MacBook Pros. This video also shares memory with the main RAM on the laptop. This means that you potentially have a lot less RAM on it than you think you do. I'm sure this lesser video chip was put into here to lower the cost. I'd much rather have the higher end chip though, or at least a way to upgrade it...

One last thing I noticed was the integrity of the casing itself. Maybe it was just the heavily handled and abused demo model I was looking at, but it didn't seem like things fit together quite right at the back of the laptop case, near the joint where the top part connects to the bottom part of the laptop. The seams seemed uneven and a bit sloppy looking. Maybe this one had just been abused and that's why things were out of kilter, but it looked a bit odd.

All in all, I'd say this would make a good first computer or a good computer for your kids to take to school, but this is definately not a power-user laptop.

Now that 17" widescreen MacBook Pro was beautiful though! I'd love to have one of those puppies!

Link: https://www.apple.com/macbook/macbook.html

Things didn't go as planned last night. I planned on it being a night out at the movies. I was going to go see "Over the Hedge". That didn't work out. Instead I ended up having to rush Jewel, my kitten, to the pet emergency room.

Last night, as I was walking around the house, I happened to notice Jewel sitting in the bathroom with something odd in her mouth. I turned on the light and got a brief glance at what looked like a piece of string. It looked like those strings that tend to hang off an old, frayed towel. I immediately grabbed her and tried to get it out of her month, but it was too late. She had swallowed it. I knew that it is a very bad thing for a cat to swallow strings, threads and stuff like that. Those things have a tendency to get clogged up in the intestines, causing the intestines to get all bunched up and twisted. This is a painful and likely lethal problem. I figured that the best approach was to make her vomit the string back up. So, I hopped in my car and went over to the pet store, just before it closed and asked the people at the vet there if they knew of a product I could buy in the store to make her vomit up that string. They told me that it's not a good idea to do that. They suggested I take her to the pet emergency room and have her checked out by a doctor. So, I called the emergency room and told them I was coming. I headed home, grabbed her and headed off to the emergency room.

We arrived at the emergency room and checked her in. The doctor came and examined her. I explained the problem - that I thought she had swallowed a string, but I didn't get a very good look at it, so I wasn't too sure what it was. I explained the hazards of what can happen if a cat swallows strings. He then recommended an injection to make her vomit. It turns out the injection is actually a sedative, but it has the side effect of making a cat vomit, almost right after the injection. So I agreed and the doctor took her off to give her the injection. A few minutes later, he came back and showed me the string she had vomitted up. It was definately the towel string, as I thought. He then advised me that she would be groggy for the rest of the night and to not give her anything to eat that night, since it might upset her stomach, after the vomitting. So after paying, and leaving I brought her home.

It was kind of funny, but a bit sad to see her trying to walk. She stumbled out of the cat carrier, walking around as if she was drunk and could barely stand. She kept trying to walk despite her being 'tipsy', but she didn't have much luck at it. I finally picked her up and put her in her bed, hoping she would go to sleep. She didn't. She continued to stumble after me wherever I walked in the house. Finally, I sat down and she proceeded to climb into my lap and go right to sleep.

This morning, she's fine and back to normal. It was a bit of a scary night though. This was my first ever pet emergency in the 3 1/2 years I've owned pets.

Well, it turns out I didn't need to wait until Monday after all. I found out in guitar class today that we could sign up for the class today if we were already students in the class, so after class I went and re-signed up for the next 8 week class. Dave (the teacher) isn't getting rid of me yet!

The interesting guitar tidbit I learned a bit about today was arpeggios (or as the teacher called it - arpeggiating). I had always thought this was just several ascending notes played in sequence. It turns out, it's more of a 'slow chord'. When you play a chord you strum the strings on the guitar. Normally you do it fast and it makes what sounds like a single note. With an arpeggio, you are playing the same chord, but you are playing each string separately, with a slight pause between each string.

Now I *really* need to get an acoustic. I think I'm going to get one now and not wait until July like I originally planned. Hey Dave, are you up for a trip to MAE and Guitar Center this weekend? :)

oday I received in the mail the schedule for the next round of adult education classes that are being offered here in Broward County. Naturally, the first thing I did was look for my guitar class. It's there. The same time, the same day, and the same location as before. The first class of the new session begins June 1st. This means that I'll finish my current class, have a week off and then start over again with the same teacher at the same place for another 8 weeks. Registration opens Monday May 15th. I'll be there, money in hand, ready to sign up. This class is definately worth the money! This will be my second 'semester' of the class. I wonder if I should stay in the beginner's side of the class or the advanced side?

Link: https://browardeducator.com