Razor televised: Raw Deal -- Razor on DVD: Awesome!

I watched Battlestar Galactica: Razor on DVD last night and was enthralled. With the scenes that were present on the disc, that had been stripped from the televised version, the story fleshed out so much nicer.

And the incredible battle scenes from the first cylon war...the original cylon raiders, the original cylon basestars, all combined with intense gripping scenes of a young Adama (callsign "Husker") piloting a Mark II Viper, accompanied by a riveting soundtrack. Well, how do you improve on this?

The DVD is definitely a great purchase. And the bonus portions were fantastic. Usually, I find the disc "extras" on a DVD to be rather pale and lifeless. However, this dics provides a number of deleted scenes that aren't even available in the DVD version of the movie. And the complementary disc (the making of Razor) really adds insight to the filming of the movie and the actors themselves, particularly Michelle Forbes (remembered by many as Ensign Ro, of ST:TNG), who plays the powerful character of Admiral Helena Cain.

Finally, though this DVD is not currently available in HD-DVD or Blu-ray, it still looks pretty good, assuming you're watching it on a player with an up-converter.

Now, I can't wait to get my hands on season 1 of BSG in HD-DVD (while hoping that HD-DVD is the format that wins out).

Oh, forgot to mention that the character of Kendra Shaw, who becomes the Pegasus XO to Commander Lee Adama, is absolutely one of the most interesting characters they've introduced to the BSG fanbase. But to be honest, every character, without exception, has been interesting, even including the deceased Commanders Garner and Fisk. And that is a real tribute to the show's quality of writing.

A Raw Deal on Battlestar Galactica Razor?

I waited months with anticipation for "Battlestar Galactica: Razor", particularly since this BSG-event offered some background on Admiral Cain (Caine?) as well as flashbacks to the cylon attack on the scorpion shipyards. My desire to see it was further enhanced by fact one, that it will be a long wait between now and the premiere of BSG season 4 , and fact two, that Galactica is coming to an end.

Well, that's what you get for daring to look forward to something. For weeks and weeks, sci-fi channel had been pumping fans with Razor "flashbacks", interspersed through other programs in their lineup. These were cool scenes, usually of young Admiral Adama.

Only thing is, when Razor aired on Sci-fi network, you didn't see those flashback scenes...you have to buy the Razor dvd to see them.

What a rip! I mean, come one. That is pure BS.

Nonetheless, I went out and bought the dvd, just like the clowns at the network figured I (and thousands of other BSG fans) would.

Can you say "conned", "hoodwinked", "ripped off"? Better yet, can you say all those things in a poem that describes how crappy Sci-fi network is?

I went to see Beowulf again last night. And I liked it even more the second time. And that's not just because of the animated hooters worn by Angelie Jolie (let's be real for a moment: Jolie is a beautiful woman but her own wares do not come close to the cgi renderings of her beowulf character). I found the voice-over acting and the scene direction (director Robert Zemeckis) to be excellent. Pile that on top of what is already a many-centuries-old classic and truly fantastic 3D effects, and, well, I would advise anyone who has not seen this movie to go out and view it.

On the subject of 3D, typically I find 3D films to be a disappointment. Something about the 3D rendering is always off. The last 3D movie I saw was "Superman Returns" (a movie that was a clear homage to the original Chris Reeve movie, to the extent that it couldn't even step out of that film's shadow) which was shown in Imax theaters. It only offered partial 3D, meaning that some scenes were standard and some were 3D, an approach that, to my mind, sucks. But what sucked even more was the fact that the 3D visualization was not particularly good.

With Beowulf, the 3D was seamless, clear, and had none of the quality of prior 3D films that tends to make you feel just a little nauseated as you watch. Perhaps they've improved the technology, or perhaps the 3D tech just goes better with an animated film. But it was great, I have to say.

Also, worth noting is the fact that the glasses made available for this movie were the highest quality I've seen yet. Very comfortable. And that, in itself, may have made a difference in terms of sustained viewer comfort while watching this movie.

Buying on Ebay...hmmm

Years ago, I bought a used computer on ebay and it arrived as a broken mess (literally, the power supply had been rolling around in the case). From that point forward, I vowed never to buy used electronics on Ebay again.

I guess it had been long enough that I forgot my vow. Recently, I purchased guitar hero on xbox 360, didn't like it, and decided to give it to a couple I know. They had played the game at a friend's home and loved it. However, they had no xbox 360 on which to play it at their own home. So, I went online and purchased it as a "buy it now" selection on Ebay. A little pricey for an xmas gift (even used, the thing was over $200), but I felt "in the giving mood".

Old lessons should be remembered for a reason, I suppose. This console, which had been advertised as mint, arrived non-functional right out of the box. It even had a label slapped on the side that said (get this) stopped working.

Irate is not the word to describe how I felt. I called the vendor and asked why my mint xbox 360 did not work and why some idiot would ship a machine that was clearly stamped "stopped working". The person on the phone apologized and said that they would be happy to make things right. And that day they emailed me a return shipping label (with a bar code for the cost) to mail this thing back.

But here's the rub. I have to box this up, go to the post office which is a bitch at xmas time, mail it back, and wait for them to receive it and get their act straight before they mail out what I already paid for.

Old lessons should not be forgotten.

Continuation of the Prior Post

This is really just a continuation of the prior post. But I thought it would be interesting to look at where this site is becoming visible on the web. I thought I would first take a look at directories. SSDRC can be found on the following directories. The first is in the disabilities section of Elegant directory. This seems to be a fairly basic type of listing and to be honest could probably stand to be more detailed as far as the description of the site is concerned. The resource link in the Retirement planning section of Directory bin looks about the same as the other and for that matter the listing in the Disabled section of Ewilla looks the same.

I really think that directories can be helfpul for web searchers. Not because they do things better than the search engines. They clearly don't when it comes to locating and indexing fresh content and prioritizing the popularity of those sites. However, popularity is not the most important criterion when it comes to keeping a record of websites. In fact, I routinely run into the problem of searching the engines on a particular topic and not being able to find useful sites. This is where directories came really come in handy. On several occasions, I've been somewhat astounded to find sites in this or that directory that I absolutely could not find in the first 20 or 30 pages of search engine results.

Other places on the web where this site may be found:

The News and Media section of Link Lasso;

The disabled Magazines and Ezines section of Skaffe;

The Disabilities and Disorders section of Yeandi.

All of these directory-type sites seems fairly well organized. There may come a day, of course, when they no longer serve a useful purpose. However, that's been predicted for several years now. And, to be honest, even as deep as the engines crawl and index, I don't see them becoming the be-all, end-all authorities on listing web content. For now, categorized-directory-sites seem to offer a useful alternative to web users who are trying to find information that, for one reason or another, the engines just can't seem to list, at least not within the first twenty result pages of a search.

Long Time Gone

It's been an extraordinary long time since I've posted here. I've really just been wrapped up at work and with family life. Lately, though, I've been assisting a friend with a site that she created a while back. This is basically a human services type thing that offers information on social security disability, which is the disability program offered by the social security administration to citizens who have worked and now, for whatever reason, are no longer able to work. My own web skills are, honestly, pretty basic, but I've been able to pitch in with editing and getting the word out to service type organizations regarding her site and the valuable information it offers for people who are disabled, or, rather, people with disabilities. I'm honestly not sure which term is more correct, PC-wise. However, I think the site pretty much speaks for itself as its been listed by a number of other websites as a helpful resource, including the 55 Kip center, Hammonton Online, Access Unlimited, Franklin's Home page, New Mobility, The Neurotalk Forum, and the disability page at All Experts.

That's the interesting thing about the way the web works, though. If you put out valuable and helpful information, particularly when it serves a useful purpose for individuals with a special need, it will generally be found. Thankfully, today's search engines are quite capable when it comes to A) finding this information, B)getting it recorded, and C) making it available to web searchers.

Interestingly enough, while I've been helping my friend with getting her site together and announcing it to its core audience, I've been coming across some statistics that are fairly surprising. According to newspaper reports, as many as one out of five people will become disabled at some point before they reach retirement age. That's pretty scary if you think about it. And it could happen as the result of a freak illness or accident. From my perspective, it makes me wonder if I should at some point get disability insurance to cover my potential lost wages in the event that I'm unable to work for an extended period.

Boy, when I was younger, all I thought about was fun stuff. But that's getting older for you. Practical considerations become the order of the day.

Google update "Buffy"

Well, a Google update is in progress and this one has been christened "Buffy" by thew WMW mods. Updates, of course, are a time when many bad sites get spanked by Google. Unfortunately, so do a few good ones.

Its too early to see what this update will do and, quite frankly, I'm just not up for watching the threads on this one. In all candor, knock on wood, I've never been affected in a fundamental way by any of them, and that includes "Big Daddy" and "Florida". And, on that subject (which sites blow in the winds of an update and which don't) I'll do a future post.

The only thing I've noticed so far about this update is that universal search seems to be rolling out a bit more. In one serps, I've noticed that google news results are being injected into the middle of page 1 (which I find very freaking irritating as it has the potential to divert organic traffic and also due to the fact that the news results just aren't that useful to searchers).

However, this could simply amount to testing. A few weeks ago, I had a minor freakout when google maps results were being slammed onto the top of certain geo-targeted serps. But that turned out to be testing as well, as least in my niches (of course, who knows how its going in other content niches).

I'm betting that the news crap will be gone in a few days. Till then, it will simply be a matter of watching to see how traffic levels are affected.

Is it good to run over your Cat?

No, don't think. In fact, I know someone who actually did this (wasn't her fault: she's over 60, the cat was about twenty, nearly deaf and blind, and had gone to sleep under the rear wheel of her car---not hard to guess what happened). And she suffered emotionally for several months over the horrific demise of "Big Kitty".

A couple nights ago, my own Karma almost went bad. I was pulling off my street onto a secondary road and there goes my cat, not-quite-sprinting, not-quite-jogging in front of my jeep grand cherokee. Elephant versus ant would be the proper comparison, in terms of relative weight and survivability.

This was at night and lucky for Cleo (cleo is the cat and chloe is the ferret), I was pulling ahead from a dead stop and just happened to be looking down at the road. Otherwise, it could have been sppplllattt!

You know, I really think they need to do some gene manipulation on domestic cats, to get them to stop "lazily loping" in front of cars because its a stupid behavior and, too often, the feline doesn't come out the winner in the age-old battle of car versus cat.

Here are a couple of pictures of Cleo the cat. They're both of her sleeping. In the first one, she's apparently dreaming of stalking prey and in the second she's in hot pursuit.

Tech Crunch and other things Crunchy

Tech Crunch?

According to Michael Kessler of USA Today, Tech Crunch, a blog that chronicles the rise and fall of Web 2.0 startups and has a readership of about a million, is the fourth most-linked-to blog on the net.

I'd never heard of it until today and I'll bet that if I asked a friend of mine who's been in the computer industry for 20 years, he'll never have heard of it, either. Likely, no one at webmasterworld will have heard of it, as well (well, probably a few will have, but I'm sure most will go "tech what?").

In fact, I think webmasterworld itself is one of the top 1000 sites on the web. Yet, aside from site operators and SEO types, the vast vast majority of Joe Websurfers (I'm thinking 99.7%)have never heard of even that celebrated site. Certainly none of the people occupying this bagel shop I'm now sitting in (but, fair is fair: they've probably all watched American Idol and Dancing with the Stars and I've never seen an installment of either...thank the gods.)

That's the thing about blogs, websites, and the web in general. Even for the biggest sites, most are completely unknown to the general public and somewhat unknown by the majority of techies--loosely defined as computer people, web people, and internet entrepeneurs.

Early this summer, an AP article revealed that, even in the U.S., a third of the adult population does not have internet access of any kind, and sees no need to "get with the times".

So, where am I going with this post? Nowhere, really. It's just interesting that you can be one of the top ten blogs on the web, with an audience of a million visitors, and still be fairly unknown...kind of puts things in perspective. Don't get me wrong, though. I'd take that kind of traffic in a heartbeat. That guy (Michael Arrington) must be making some serious bank.

What would life be like without more sequels?

I like a good sequel as much as anyone else (Pirates of the Caribbean 3 for example) and I hate it when a good movie series is flubbed by a bad sequel (just my opinion, but Spiderman 3 didn't cut it, nor did Shrek the third, though, in all honesty, that series collapsed with the second movie).

In each of the examples I just cited, the sequels were spawned from an innovative, original, and excellent film (The first Shrek is an absolute classic). However, it doesn't always work that way.

I think if you're going to make a sequel, do it for a movie that was decent to begin with. Again, just my opinion, but the film adaptation of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was pretty rank. Of course, I never read the book and, considering the possibility that it was, in fact, a faithful adaption, I've resolved never to read it.

Howevever, I have read and loved most of Tolkiens' stuff (The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, Unfinished tales of Middle Earth) and I also read the first and second chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever (which, obviously, is conceptually drawn from Tolkien, but which distinguishes itself by both its fine writing and its use of an "anti-hero" as the protagonist). Both are stellar works in the "coming great battle against an ancient and unspeakable evil" genre of writing (this theme was also borrowed by the Babylon 5 series, if you recall).

Narnia, Prince Caspian, by the way is due out in May of 2009, coincidentally around the same time as the new Chevy Camaro. So that year won't be a total loss at least.