Dark Angel Comes In Peace

02.06.2013

One of my favorite movies from the Working in the Video Store era was I Come in Peace, a Dolph Lundgren Sci Fi Action epic! Fine, maybe not epic, but for the time (released in 1990) it was pretty good. While surfing the Amazon I came across the above movie, but it was no longer "I Come in Peace", it was now "Dark Angel".

Tuesday is my normal Stack of DVDs from Amazon day, and I Come in Peace/Dark Angel was part of the booty. Looking at the box art (shown on the left side of the above graphic) I quickly decided I didn't like it. After years of seeing the VHS box art it was just wrong. Not to mention I was never going to accept "Dark Angel" as the title. I decided to replace the cover insert with what I was used to.

From here I went to the internet and tried to use my powers for good. I went online and found a picture of the original "I Come in Peace" box. Next I found the standard size for the cover inserts (10.75" x 7.25" if you're curious). I then wave my Paint Shop Pro wand and did some resizing to make sure something appropriate appears on the front, back , and spine of the box. Next was printing and inserting, and wham bam thank you internet the crappy Dark Angel box is now the 1990 I Come in Peace box that I can recognize sitting on a shelf.

Next will come watching the movie and see how it's fared over the past 14+ years since I last watched it. I'm approaching this like the Flash Gordon movie - good memories and not expecting a lot. Here's the trailer, which is nothing like I remember (except maybe for the CDs of death):

Permalink movies/tv/dvd

439 is a 4-letter word

02.04.2013

Last week I went to a consult with a bariatric surgeon. This is one of those things I've been thinking about for years (gastric bypass/gastric sleeve/lap band). I know a couple of people that have either gone through the process or are going through the process and it's worked out well for them. There's 6 months between starting everything to appease the insurance gods and the actual surgery, so I decided to start the process - I've still got 6 months to make a decision.

The first thing they did at my consultation was weigh me. The last time I saw my weight outside of my scales at home was when I was in the hospital for my pilonidal cyst surgery (428lbs according to their scale). The bariatric surgeon has fancy scales that tell you not just your weight, but measures your actual body fat via bioelectrical impedance. That's where the little receipt above comes in.

Last Thursday I got weighed and the scales printed a receipt. I've since been on the web on learned how to read the receipt. This is what I learned:

• I weigh 439.2 pounds. With clothes on. Good god that's a lot of weight to lug around.
• I'm carrying 258.61 pounds of fat (Fat Mass). Yes, that's more than 50% of my weight. No wonder I have a hard time getting around.
• 180.61 lbs is my fat-free weight (FFM). This is the weight of bones, muscle, tissue.
• 132.21 lbs is my water I'm carrying (TBW). Muscle contains water, so 130+ pounds doesn't sound too bad.

At the end is listed my desirable fat mass of 26.2-40.4 pounds, which if you add it to my base fat free weight (180.61) would put me in the 206-221 pound range, which is where I was at some point in high school. I weight 238 at graduation, and that's the lowest weight I remember.

That step is out of the way - the shock and horror of how freaking big I am. The next step is squaring away the requirements to get insurance to pay along with visiting my regular doctor to start documenting a medically supervised diet.

439.2. Damn.

Permalink diet pilonidal cyst

New Monitors

01.29.2013

For years I've had extra monitors. 1 monitor is never enough. 2 is more than 1, but still not enough. When being productive, I've generally got a graphics program open, some type of text editor, an internet browser, and iTunes all going. On top of that, my penchant for organization means whatever files I'm working on aren't going to be in the same folder, so I'll have a couple of windows open to the appropriate folders.

A few years ago I discovered the joys of USB monitors. At the time ThinkGeek sold little 800x600 USB monitors for $99, which you could generally find on sale for $79. I picked up 3 over time and each little monitor had a purpose. One would generally have iTunes, another the folder I was using a lot for whichever project, and the 3rd would be my path to opening more windows.

A couple of weeks ago my little monitors started acting funny. When the screensaver was on, a USB monitor would randomly lock up. When booting the computer, the order in which the OS thought the monitors were displayed would switch around (so the one on the far right would act as if it was on the far left - just switch around monitor configurations to confuse yourself sometime). Ever since upgrading to Windows 7/64-bit the monitors had acted a little peculiar, and updating the drivers for them would just break everything.

Being me, I did a little investigation and found some USB monitors to replace the old ones. ThinkGeek no longer carried the small monitors. Amazon still carried them (and still at $99), but I didn't think replacing the monitors with thesame thing would help anything. Enter 16" USB Monitor from a brand I had never heard of. Also $99. The good reviews outweighed the bad reviews, so I decided to give it a shot. I ordered 2 to replace the 3 old USB monitors. They arrived yesterday and I got everything hooked up today. So far I'm liking the new layout, and the new monitors are easier on my old eyes.

The only thing I'm worried about from the bad reviews are the ones where the monitors didn't last long (failed within a couple of months). Luckily, this is Amazon and I shouldn't have to worry too much if things fail quickly. There was no warranty or company contact info in the box the monitors came in, so dealing with AOC (maker of said monitors) would probably not be a good experience.

Today, though, good experience.

Permalink programming/interweb random

After 20 years I should get over it.

01.23.2013

I've been in a nit-picky mood over the last couple of days. I can chalk in up to hormones, I know this is cyclic in nature. My nit-pickyness tends to bring out my inner asshole, so I try my best to just avoid people for the week or so this lasts. I don't feel like I've been doing a good job, though. I just have this feeling that I'm irritating people. I don't really care right now, but next week it will bother me.

My nit-picking mind set threw me back in time last night. I was laying in bed waiting to fall asleep and my mind wandered back 20 years. This time in 1993 I was enrolled in Calhoun Community College making one last attempt at getting through school after dropping out at least twice (maybe three times). When I started at CCC I transferred no credits and started over from scratch. I had roughly a years worth of credits from my previous collegiate attempts, but a fresh start was something I needed more than that year of credit.

This time 20 years ago I was in my 2nd quarter of school. My first quarter I had pulled in 4 A's and was proud of myself - it seems starting over might actually work. My bain of this quarter was English 102, not so much for the content (all anyone ever talked about concerning this class was the emphasis on a research paper we had to write) but due to the teacher. There's a certain aura around community colleges - basically it's 13th and 14th grades, just an extension of high school. My EH102 teacher was determined this was to be a high level college course.

I was fine with the class content, what was expected of us, what we had to do from day to day. Being the old man in the class (after all I was roughly 10 years older than everybody else in this class) I didn't wait until the last minute to do anything. The big research paper we had to write was to be an argumentative (pick a side) paper on any subject we chose. I picked my topic - The Need For Increased Computer Security, since at the time there people were just learning about hackers and their ilk - and of the 10 weeks of class I speant at least 7 weeks working on my paper by collecting and documenting research, writing, and re-writing. Whatever book of rules we were supposed to follow (some details I can forget after 20 years!) I was as sure as I could be I was following those rules.

On the day we were to turn in our papers we also had a test. I remember turning in my paper and being fairly confident I was going to get an A. A's were not easy to get in this class, I do remember that much. When I glanced up from my test and saw the teacher with the turned in papers I knew I might be in a little trouble. He had a ruler and was measuring margins.

Although I had set my printer up for the right size margins, 20 years ago we used tractor-fed printers (the kind of paper with strips of perferated holes on each side). I was pretty sure I hadn't lined up my paper-feed properly. Crap.

The next week I got my paper back. 89. Not an A. What all had I done wrong? I looked through for red marks on my paper. There was 1 for incorrect margins (damn you tractor feed!). I also had a mark where I referred to "University of X" and "X University". Lastly I had a red mark for a comma I didn't need.

3 red marks. 11 points off. I found out later I had the highest grade in the class on the turned in research papers. At the time it didn't help. 20 years later I'm still a bit miffed.

Permalink random

Cold. Car. Compressor.

01.15.2013

The first cold of 2012 is mostly over - I've still got a couple more days of antibiotics to take, but I'm about as well as I'm going to get (nagging cough notwithstanding). The antibiotic knocks me out about an hour after I take it. It's a once-a-day antibiotic, so I'm assuming my nap an hour after taking it is a side effect.

I tried to go to work today but didn't make it. Oddly enough it had nothing do to with being sick (or recovering). Last week I was running errands and the car made a funny noise between the Athens Lowe's and Staples. These are across the highway from each other, and it was a chilly day so I was trying to chalk it up to the car not warming up enough before turning it off. The sound was that of a fan rattling. I'm not sure what switches I was hitting, but by the time I made it to Gina's house to ask her opinion everything was sounding back to normal - hence the "maybe the car hadn't warmed up enough" diagnosis.

This morning as I made my way to work that sound popped up again as I turned on the defogger/defroster. I generate enough heat on a cold day that I fog up the windows. I heard a rattling fan and figured it had something to do with that defogger button, since the sound went away when I turned the defogger off. The only problem here was that the window was fogging up so bad I couldn't see out. I made it as far as Publix (roughly 4 miles) before I turned around and made it back home, taking only twice as long as normal. Every time I would wipe the inside of the windshield, I would work up enough heat to fog it up all over again.

Once the morning traffic dies down, I went back out and tried holding my breath as I headed toward the Athens mechanic. The windows were cracked, it's 38° outside, and I'm worried about my body heat fogging up the windows. The windows didn't get too bad by the time I got to the garage. The mechanic gave me a quick diagnosis - compressor. I figured it would be something expensive. He then spent the next hour calling around and getting parts which won't all get delivered until tomorrow. So I held my breath and headed home again.

Tomorrow I'll drop the car off to get it fixed. I don't know when Ford decided to make the compressor and important part of the defogger running. I always thought it was just a fan that blew non-compressed air. Now I know better.

I bought the car on Halloween 2009. 3¼ years I've now had:

• Flat Tire
• Broken Compressor

Usually after the 3rd problem I start looking for another car. I hope that 3rd problem can wait another 2 years.

Permalink conveyances random