Ninjineer

I’m leaving for the States today and managed to land a free upgrade into business class. That will definitely make the eleven-hour leg to reach Honolulu a whole lot less grueling.

Once again I had the chance to read many opinions of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull prior to it coming to a theatre near me. Many of them were critical, especially towards Lucas’ script. Despite the negative pre-screening impression these engendered, I found this flick a thoroughly enjoyable addition to the Indiana Jones mythos.

Certainly many of the movie’s events stretched the bounds of credulity, but no more so than the other Dr. Jones outings. Lest we forget, he has crashed a biplane into the side of a building, cruised across the sea perched atop a periscope, leapt from a doomed aircraft with an inflatable raft for a parachute, and weathered the divine wrath of the Hebrew God. All with nary a scratch. So while his ride in the refrigerator is improbable, it definitely falls within the realm of the possible for Indie.

Likewise, I found the crystal skull just as believable (in the suspension of disbelief sense) as the other magical artifacts he has encountered. If fact, given the paranoid McCarthyism framing the movie, the otherworldly nature of the skull struck me as deliciously appropriate.

Today, I received my first negative feedback.

Tyler wrote:

please stop making tumblr themes.
they all suck.

My first reaction was surprise that someone had taken the time to belittle my work. My next was to mash the Reply button and scan down a mental list possible replies to fire back:

• Option 1: The Constructive Repsonse

  Thank you for taking the time to examine my designs and offer your feedback. I’m sorry you did enjoy them. Perhaps if you could provide concrete examples where you found them difficent, I could make improvements. Also, it would be helpful if you would point me to some tumblelog layouts that you feel exemplify the best of designs.

• Option 2: The Marketing Response

  I regret that my products did not meet your discerning standards. Rest assured that I am hard at work on our next generation of awesome themes. I am certain each and every one of them will exceed your wildest expectations.

• Option 3: The Dismissive Response

  Uh, whatever, dude.

• Option 4: The Childish Response

  Yeah, well your capitalization skills suck. Shame you’re gonna have to repeat fourth grade next year.

• Option 5: The Sarcastic Response

  Why, thank you for your insightful comment. You have opened my eyes to the ineptitude of my efforts. Going forward, I shall immediately stifle all further theme generation impulses.

Ultimately, however, my defensive surge receded and I discarded the reply email.

I realized I do not need to convince this naysayer of anything. I had made and released those themes because I enjoyed transforming my ideas into concrete form. If others do not share an appreciation for the results, it does not diminish the pleasure I derived from the act of their creation.

And what of the redress for having my insecurities yanked? Well, there’s the catharsis of this post to address that.

I almost did not get to see this movie. Before it started, a movie preview featured a horde of singing and dancing Chihuahuas. The agony was so intense I very nearly had to put out my own eyes to easy my suffering. Fortunately, the trailer ended before I could sharpen a pair of straws, thus sparing me from further pain and saving my optic organs for the feature presentation.

Prince Caspian was a worthy sequel to the first Narnia movie. This time around, though, the role of The Ass was played by Peter instead of Edmund. I appreciated the change. In fact, Edmund was my favorite character of the flick after the Dear Little Friend.

I did get tripped up with one little detail at the end of the movie. Aslan asserted that the Telmarines were descended from earthling pirates (probably conquistadors) who sailed into a portal that brought them to Narnia. Problem is, such ships sail with few, if any, women, and I don’t recall any humans in Narnia. So, how did they manage to procreate sufficiently to arrive at the “civilization” of the movie?

Finally, a couple summer blockbusters landed on the island. One of which was the much anticipated Iron Man. Truth be told, I was disappointed. Thanks to consuming several weeks of high praise for the movie prior to viewing it, I went in expecting awesome. Instead, it was merely great. Still, I’d rank above the last Spider-Man or X-men outings.

Linux is a brilliant yet quirky scientist. In his environment he’s an intellectual titan. No doubt the world would collapse without his continued efforts. Outside the laboratory, though, he struggles to relate to those who do not share his esoteric viewpoint.

Windows styles himself a dashing rake. Riding the wave of his popularity he manages to convince the ladies to sleep with him on the first date. And for reasons inexplicable, they keep coming back to him thinking the sex has to better the next time around. Only it never is, for beneath his glossy veneer lies a passionless automaton devoid of even the spark of originality.

Macintosh swirls with a seductive mystique that hints of limitless possibility. Her allure is undeniable, for she is a Muse who encourages discovery, inspires creativity, and fuels imagination; all with a deft and subtle touch. To bask in her aura is to tempt original thought and court unique expression.

Care to guess which operating system I favor?

Long before iPhoto came along, I had settled on an organization scheme for my digital photos. All the photos for a given day go into a folder named with that date in YYYY-MM-DD format. After the date, I might append a brief description of the event on that day. This has worked well enough for me.

The only draw back has been that after dumping the image files from my camera to my hard disk, I have had to manually create the individual day folders and drag the files to their appropriate folder. While not difficult, it is labor intensive. Such drudgery isn’t fun, so I’ve been avoiding it. For a year.

That many unsorted photos was finally a significant enough problem, that I took the time to write a script to do the work for me.

on open fileList
  tell application "Finder"
    repeat with aFile in fileList
      set modDate to modification date of aFile
      set mYear to year of modDate as text
      set mMon to month of modDate as number
      set mMon to text -2 thru -1 of ("0" & (mMon as text))
      set mDay to text -2 thru -1 of ("0" & (day of modDate as text))
      set folderName to mYear & "-" & mMon & "-" & mDay
      
      set filePath to (container of aFile) as text
      
      if not (exists folder (filePath & folderName)) then
        make folder at filePath with properties {name:folderName}
      end if
      
      move file aFile to folder (filePath & folderName)
    end repeat
  end tell
end open

The above source code is an AppleScript, so Windows users are out of luck. Open Script Editor and copy the code into an empty script window. Then save it. When the Save dialog pops up, give it a name (I called mine Sort Photos) and set the File Type to “Application”.

Select a bunch of files and drag them onto the saved script’s icon. A few seconds later (depending on how many files were selected), all those files will be moved to a folder that corresponds to their modification dates.

Exercise due caution. There is no undo for this script should you sort something inadvertently.

Eons ago, back when I was around eight, I had to spend the time between the end of school and my parents getting home at some lady’s house. I hated being there, because the minutes took months to pass. I can’t recall the lady’s name or even what she looked like, but I do remember she had two stairs that went down into her living room. I would sit on the lower of the two and watch TV.

In that bygone era, there were exactly three channels, not that that mattered, since I was not granted authority to touch the set let alone change the channel. Two shows thus dominated my viewing. The first was a talkshow called Donahue. I despised that show with a burning purple passion. (I wonder if it’s why I have no use for talkshows?) The other show was Speed Racer, and it was the only bright spot in those dull, epoch-length afternoons.

So, with this nostalgia niggling at the back of my mind, I went to see the movie incarnation of Speed Racer with a certain measure of hope. This optimism was further bolstered by last year’s Transformers, a movie that successfully stepped out of its animated roots and onto the big screen. However, I knew going in the flick had tanked at the box office (or at least failed to clear its $120 million price tag).

Well, it didn’t stink, but I didn’t come away with a sense of awesome either. Let’s call it luke warm.

For my money, the biggest failure was the stylistic blending of the Nintentdo-esque CG and full-on live action. It just didn’t work. The movie felt more like the people were trapped in a video game world (a la TRON) rather than actually living in a cool future. Not even the sprinkling of ninjas could overcome this.

With kung fu flicks, I used to think that the story did not matter as long as the action was good. But then I became spoiled with films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The House of Flying Daggers that offered engaging drama coupled with beautifully choreographed martial arts. Were I still naive, The Forbidden Kingdom would have rated well, but when stacked against the titans of the genre, it paled by comparison.

Cetainly, I found the kung fu exceptional. How could I not, when one of the scenes featured Jet Li and Jackie Chan squaring off. Yet what let me down was the utterly predicable and altogether corny story.

Today marks the eleventh anniversary of my relocation from the Pacific Northwest to Pohnpei.

At the conclusion of World War II in the Pacific, the United States gained a number of island trust territories. A couple of these, Guam and the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas Islands, are still U.S. possessions. Others, such as the Marshall Islands, Palau (host to two seasons of Survivor ), and the Federated States of Micronesia, formed their own countries.

Despite their autonomy these countries are still heavily influenced by the U.S. Their currency is the U.S. dollar. They follow the U.S. system of measures. (Trivia fact: the United States is not the only country not on the metric system.) They are included in the U.S. Postal System. And the U.S. is the primary source of funds for fueling their governments.

The Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) comprises mostly water. In area it’s roughly the same size as the continental United States. This area has been divided into four states named after the primary island in each state: Chuuk, Kosrae, Yap, and Pohnpei. Each state has its own local language, however, most everyone speaks English too.

Pohnpei is a tiny island sitting only few degrees north of the equator. It is It is tropical which produces lush vegetation. Of course, it takes a lot of water to keep the greenery flourishing. Pohnpei has annual rainfall of around 200 inches. The good news is that when it’s not raining, the sun is out. Rain or shine, temperatures are in the eighties year round.

The main island of Pohnpei does not have beaches, but there are many islands within a short boat ride that do. The water is warm and clear so the diving and snorkeling are excellent. In recent years, the island has begun attracting the interest of world-class surfers. The waves are out on the outer reef, so one had best be highly skilled to attempt them. If you wipe out there, you’re pretty much fucked.

To get here, most folks take the “island hopper.” It’s a Continental Airlines flight that originates in Honolulu and stops at three other islands before arriving in Pohnpei roughly eleven hours later. At some point during the flight, the plane crosses the international date line. This trip ain’t cheap. A round trip ticket I purchased in January set me back $1600.

Personal Factoids is an ever-growing collection of posts detailing some of my oddities.

Who should the unsuspecting world thank (blame?) for this gift (punishment?). Well, the post “things about me” gave me the original idea for this series. The post “Weird things about me” reinforced the idea and prompted me to start sooner rather than later.