SteveCook.net

On a recent trip up to Seattle (for SJ’s Wedding Reception) I took along “Little Brother” by Cory Doctorow. It’s a YA near future novel about a young hacker out to change the world from an oppressive government agency that’s gone on a rampage.

Politically, I try not to classify myself as anything – I have my own opinions and beliefs so I don’t stick with just a single party. If anything I’d be an objectivist libertarian with republican tendencies (well old-republican fiscal leanings). I’m even liberal on a few select topics, but don’t tell anyone. Basically, I’m as from from being a hippie as you could imagine.

The book does delve into the hippie/yippie sub-culture a bit – and even makes it sound great and wonderful. There’s also some demonstrations, discussions, political dissidents, etc.

You’d most likely assume I didn’t like the book - but you’d be completely wrong. It was enjoyable and a quick read. It is classified as “young adult”, so it’s not overly complex, and I would probably recommend it to any 14-18 year-olds that are interested in hacking and/or freedom.  I’d also recommend it to anybody else too – it’s an enjoyable book that makes you think.

Seriously, I’m pretty sure they are morons.  Again they sent my package to “delivered” land, but it’s nowhere in sight.

It’s happened several times in the past few months, with a couple boxes turning up at a neighbors house (with an address NOTHING like mine – it was a couple streets over), but a few times the box is just gone.  I called their customer support and they said they’ll send the driver out to the house he delivered it too. I’m not holding my breath, since last time the driver said it WAS my house – and the next day the neighbor brought my package that had been left at his door… Niiiiice.

My house is not hidden or complicated to find – Fedex has never had an issue finding it – ever.

If you can avoid using UPS, use ANYTHING else… cuz they still suck.

For being such a geek, it took me a “very long” time to upgrade to HD.  A few years ago, all my friends had new DLP 720 TV’s, but they were limited in the channels as well as the additional equipment to make use of their then-new technology.

It was a conscious choice I made to wait until the TV could:

1. Easily (without additional hardware) get broadcast reception 
2. Connect to satellite (DirecTV)
3. Be bright enough for our living room (it has 2 floors of big windows so it’s bright during the day) 
4. Be “safe” to use with the XBox 360/Wii/PS3

Near the end of last year, it was getting close enough that I bit the bullet and bought a very nice and large LCD tv with plenty of HDMI, composite, RCA, and DVI inputs. I’m glad I waited, as the TV has everything I need.

And, after upgrade DirecTV to their HD DVR, I have to say that 1080 ROCKS!  Although not everything is transmitted in 1080, whenever it is, it looks amazing.  I watched the first Formula 1 race, and it is SOOOO much better.

The past couple days we’ve been watching the Olympics on the various NBC channels (Universal HD, etc.) and the picture is simply awesome. It makes a huge difference, not only in the clarity and crispness of the picture, but also the additional text “overlays” that have informaiton – due to the better resolution, more useful info can be displayed.

If you don’t have an HD set yet, I would have to say that now is the time – bite the bullet and do it (even you SJ!)

Janet and I had a great (albeit short) trip to Vegas last week. We went for different reasons that just seemed to match up – Janet wanted to see Craig Ferguson’s stand-up routine, and I wanted to be sure to go through Star Trek: The Experience at least one more time before they closed it on September 1st.

Craig Ferguson was very funny. He had a writer from his show (also a stand-up) as his opening act, and he was also really funny. It was nice to see Craig in a “non-censored” mode – he had a lot of funny stories about Scotland and wanting to come over to the U.S. as soon as possible.

Ka, the Cirque du Soliel show at MGM, was exceeding boring. Yeah, you read that right. B.O.R.I.N.G.  Seriously, for a Cirque show, it was long and drawn out and almost put me to sleep (not an exaggeration – literally asleep). The stage was neat – it tiled 90 degrees and rotated all the way around, but with some many things you can do with a stage like that, they just jumped around on it a bit. SteveJ said it was great, but he was totally wrong – it sucked. I figure he must’ve had his “love goggles” on when he saw it, because most of the people leaving the show thought the same thing – even the guy in the row in front of us that was snoring. The guys on the rotating circles were neat, but that’s about it.

Star Trek: The Experience was great (Janet wasn’t as impressed as I was, however).  We went for the full package, which also included the back-stage tour experience.  Gretchen was our tour guide, and she was HAWESOME. It was great to hear her talk about the history of the show and the ride/experience, but it was also sad to hear her talk about what was going to happen when they closed up shop in the next month and a half.  The backstage tour was really cool because we got to look around the bridge longer (instead of rushed through during the rides). I took a bunch of pictures that will be online shortly.  I also bought some souveniers (t-shirts, lapel pins, drinking glasses, etc.), a stuffed vulcan teddy bear for Sterling, and a water phaser for Jonah. Shockingly, Janet didn’t really want anything.  Both rides were cool (though Klingon Encounter is still a little better). You have about 3 weeks left, so if you’re going – get a move on!