Archive - 2008 - Blog entry

Christmas, 1887.

As England freezes through the most bitter winter for over a century, a series of controversial medical trials sparks a shocking train of events that leads to Dr John H Watson taking a straight razor to his impressive military moustache, and Mr Sherlock Holmes giving up his favourite chair.

Will either man survive the bleak winter, a crisis of identity, and the attentions of a very determined killer?

Dream Realm Enterprises presents:

The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes - CHRISTMAS SPECIAL 2008

The Misadventure of the Five Watsons

by Vince Stadon

(download mp3)

"Please tell me, which of you gentlemen is Mr Sherlock Holmes...?"

WHODUNNIT?

• Mr Sherlock Holmes - Jeff Niles
• Dr John H Watson - Elie Hirschman
• Mrs Hudson - Lisanne Heyward
• Inspector Gregson - Wayne Heyward
• Jemima Winterton - Cookie Colletti
• Atkinson - Paul W. Campbell
• Stackhouse - Jim Barbour
• Charlotte Jones - Kat Waterflame
• Reverend - Jeff Niles

• Theme Music - Alain Morin
• Incidental Music - Alain Morin
• Additional Music - First Com
• Sound Design - DRE
• Executive Producer - Jeff Niles
• Exec. Producer for DRE - Jonithan Patrick Russell

PLUS a bonus scene! (download mp3)

I'm reduced to memes.  At least I'm posting something.

Swiped form Mary Robinette Kowal:

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language (only if you count programming languages)
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkelling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud (almost died in some mud, wouldn't call it playing)
54. Gone to a drive-in theatre
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class (as a student)
    
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies (sold generic cookies door-to-door)
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favourite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous 
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Read an entire book in one day

20 out of 100.  Admittedly there are several I don't want to do.

It should be fairly clear here that I can't draw. Never was very good. I did manage once to be able to draw a fair profile of Judge Dredd, but that was just his head.

If anything, I've regressed:

The results of your analysis say:

• You are driven and ambitious and tend to make radical moves to reach your goals.
• You are a thoughtful and cautious person. You like to think about your method, seeking to pursue your goal in the most effective way.
• You have a sunny, cheerful disposition.

What does your drawing say about YOU?

I think the analysis comes more from your own interpretation of your drawing, rather that there being any computer analysis of it.

Found on the blog of another Paul Campbell. The one that writes for EastEnders and Holby. Not the one that was in Battlestar Galactica and now Knight Rider.

On the subject of writing, I'm working on the script for episode 7 of Estalvin's Legacy. Sadly, when I came back to revise the original scripts that I'd written for episodes 7 through 12 last November, I was very unhappy with the structure of large parts of it. I haven't thrown all of it out, I do like a lot of the elements I had in there. So those are being cherry picked for the new scripts.

The biggest change from previous scripts is a much tighter focus. Instead of trying to keep up with all of the characters in each episode, I'm focusing in on one set in the A story and an other in the B story. That will be a two part story, episodes 7 and 8. Episode 9 will then move on to a different set of characters.

If you want to consider Episodes 1 though 6 as the Mini-Series, where the universe is setup, and we are now into the actual series.

After spending a week working with some Acer Aspire Ones at work, I caved and bought one for myself. Okay, I lied. It was two and a half days.

Anyway, that isn't the point. The Linpus distro of Linux (some Fedora Core 8 deirvative) was very quickly and easily replaced with Ubuntu 8.04.1 through booting from a USB. (Creating a Bootable Ubuntu USB key).

There are a number of hoops to jump though the get Hardy working properly, but not too much. Most things just work straight out of the box. (Install Ubuntu Hardy Heron (8.04.1) on the Acer Aspire One).

One of the updates that I've followed is putting on the UME-Launcher and the associated Window Picker applet. A simplified interface with much less clutter than a normal desktop. But not as stripped down as the Linpus. You get the main menu items from the Ubuntu menu down the left side. When you pick one the contents of the menu appear as icons in the main area in the middle for the screen. To the right is a list of nautilus Places (bookmarks, USB drives etc). However when you click on one of these a nautilus window opens. Might be nice if that could be integrated to display the contents in the center area too. They are both under active development, with new versions appearing every few days.

I've also installed Sun's latest release of VirtualBox 2.0.4. No, not the Open Source edition. I want to be able to connect USB devices, like my iPod, into it. I have an audible.co.uk subscription, so I need to use iTunes. VirtualBox is the only VM that I've found that supports passing through USB ports to the guest OS, and thus to iTunes. Unfortunately the Open Source edition doesn't include this USB support.

Not that getting the USB to work was straight forward, but thanks the fantastic documentation from Ubuntu, I managed to get iTunes to see my iPod. (VirtualBox USB).

An interesting feature I found with VirtualBox, is what it calls Seamless Mode. It's fairly simple what it does, but the effect is impressive and I'll find it very usefull at work where I have to work in both Linux and Windows environments simultaneously. What Seamless mode does is removes the Windows desktop background. You can see and click on the windows in the background. This simple change (yeah simple to describe, the developers might have a different opinion) allows Linux and Windows apps to run side by side. And with the performance I've seen with VirtualBox, it does it smoothly.

On a side note, I've noticed that sometime recently there must have been an upgrade to the touchpad driver in Ubuntu. Now when you slide up or down the right hand edge (about 20% of the pad area) this now simulates a mouse scroll button. Takes a tiny bit of getting used to, but it is so worth it. I must admit that I really miss the scroll button when I find myself on a PC that doesn't have one.

Now in Public Beta - no special code needed.

Dropbox is another internet file space. With built in encrypted network traffic, sharing, and automatic synchronisation, you can work on your files in any networked computer.

What especially appeals to me is the Linux client complete with Gnome integration.

Did I mention that you also get 2.0Gb free space?

I've only just installed the client, but it looks very promising.

No, really. I don't. The three PCs and two laptops I have in the house are perfectly adequate. I mean, they all work. Okay, the laptop that is actually mine has a couple of loose keys after I converted it to Dvorak. But that really isn't enough to consign it to a cupboard. Is it?

No, I haven't been looking at an HP Mini Note from Efficient PC. Comes with SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 pre-installed rather than Ubuntu though. There, excuse found. Feeble as it may be.

But I am tempted.

For now, I resist. For now.

So Pathalogic is no longer supported on Drupal 5:

The Drupal 5 version of this module is no longer being supported. You may submit patches and issues for it if you'd like, but the Drupal 6 release is going to receive the majority of my attention. Time to upgrade, folks…

Now if only it was that simple. However there are several modules that my various site are dependent upon that have not been converted to Drupal 6 yet. I'm looking at you project, among others. Personally I'm quite patient, and am happy enough to wait till these things are ready.

So I could leave the module active and upgrade to Drupal 6 when I can. There is a problem with this however. The Update Status module will constantly report that I have an "Unsupported release". Which means that I will receive a steady stream of alert emails telling me to do something for the site. I won't know, without manually checking the status page, if there are any security updates needed. This leads to ignoring the alerts and possibly missing a critical security update.

Not good.

And Pathologic? Not that critical to be honest. I think I can live without it.

I've disabled the module and my Status Report is all green again.

When I can eventually upgrade to Drupal 6 will I use Pathologic again? Not if I haven't missed it. Chances are I will have forgotten all about it by then.

Bad move on the module developers part methinks.

(maybe some very minor spoilers)

I went to see The Dark Knight last night with friends. There was some trepidation that it might not live up to the hype, but being aware of that, we tried not to let our expectations run away with us.

The opening image, flying in over the city during the day was slightly jarring from what I was expecting. It didn't say Dark or Gothic to me. That passed quickly as we got into the goings on of a bank caper involving a gang wearing clown masks.

Heath Ledger does indeed give an absolutely compelling performance as The Joker. Some of the best moments being without dialogue. Just a look up from under that dirty hair, or clapping his hands in a cell. The scene involving the 'body bag' is still in and doesn't feel awkward. I'm glad they left it in. Heath left us while at the top of his game.

There is some gruesome violence that happens just as the camera blinks away to another angle. I think there may have been some re-editing to get a lower certificate. Although the trick involving the disappearing pencil was very nicely done.

The voice changer on the Batman's voice sounded a little harsh. There were a few too many lines where I couldn't make out what he was saying.

The fight scenes were much better than in Batman Begins. The fights scene there were like those in some of the Bourne movies where all you could see was a flurry of undifferentiated blurs. There was very little of those really fast cuts, you could actually see more of the action this time.

I had some credulity problems with some crowd reactions on the ferries. Too passive and resigned. I understand that there was a plot point being hit with this set-up, but I guess I'm thinking like the Joker on this. It jarred with me about as much as it did with him.

Gyllenhaal owns her character. Unlike the first film, Rachel doesn't feel under utilised.

Harvey Dent has a great story arc. Very satisfying. Strong performance especially towards the end.

This is a jam-packed film. At least three times I found myself thinking that the film was over, that we were heading into the denouement only to kick of again.

I'm so going to pay for this later today.

I was out at a house warming party last night. Great fun. Even getting beaten up by Leonie & Pam. They were practising to achieve a specific sound rather than anything else. Honest. Not because I told them they slapped like girls.

What am I going to pay for? Getting to bed at 2am, them getting up at 6.30am. On a Sunday, no less. I expect I'll collapse into a brief fit on somnolence shortly after lunch.

Yesterday I started completely rearranging my living room. Six years of house dust behind the bookcases. I'm still sneezing. That's actually why I woke up so early. It had gotten into my throat and made it all itchy and my ears weren't much happier. So that's pretty much why I got up so early.

Took the opportunity to finish wiring up the computer network and the TV now that things are laid out differently. I now have several extra cables that are redundant.

Time for breakfast I think.

I woke up this morning knowing that during the night, as I had been drifting in and out of sleep, I had been thinking about scenes and plot twists for Estalvin's Legacy. I couldn't remember what they were, but I know they had been great ideas. Cool twists that could pull me out of the minor knots that I had. An extra layer of the onion.

But, like I said, I couldn't remember them. I didn't care that I couldn't remember. Because what I did remember was each time, switching on my bedside light and grabbing my glasses, notebook and pen and scribbling down a paragraph to remind me.

Better yet, in the full light of a slightly over-cast and not-yet-burnt-off day, I can read those notes and still think they are good ideas.