Happy Halloween

Well, today is that day where kids go out dressed as monsters, porn stars dress down (wait isn't that everyday?) and people wait at their door to hand out candy. Well unless they decide to go out to dinner and a movie instead. ;-)

Ah yes, Halloween. Such a festive day... getting a sugar rush followed by a huge headache! Fun times, fun times indeed.

Went to Wal-Mart today. Saw a bunch of people dressed up walking around there getting their last minute supplies for whatever activities they have going on today/tonight. Was fun to see the people that work there dressed up. Saw a vampire even, very good indeed.

Have a fun, safe happy Halloween. Don't eat too much candy... and make sure you take some of the kids's candy 'cause they don't need all that sugar!

Hello World!

You know the age old tried and true method where you know you have a programming language installed correctly. The one where create a "Hello World" application? Yeah, that's the one.

Kids start off with their first words being "Mama" or "Dada", a programmer's first words are "Hello World!".

Side Note: Actually my first words were "Holy Sh** it worked!" But more on that another time.

Ah yes, a tried and true method. I remember reading a book once, where instead of starting with the Hello World example, 'cause the author thought it was rather boring... he started off with a different example completely.

I found this approach to be rather soothing. I was grateful that they had decided to go with a different approach. Needless to say it caught my attention.

Side Note: Must not have caught my attention that great... 'cause I can't recall what it is at the moment... darn it! Oh well.

So yes, next time you write a book or create a script, instead of doing the whole "Hello World!" nonsense, begin with something else... who knows, perhaps it will lead to something greater.

SG:U New Episode

Haven't had time to watch the latest episode of Stargate Universe yet. I'll probably end up watching it tonight or early tomorrow.

I'll post an update on it after I watch it. Hmmm... I wonder if Hulu has the episode up yet, I'll have to check that out.

How Ant Changed My Life

Let's talk about Ant for a moment and how it has basically changed my life. Talk about an awakening.

Ant is basically a version of Make. I've never used Make, so I haven't a clue how that works... but I'm sure someone out there knows how Make does its thing.

You see, Ant is awesome. It allows you to automate your builds. You can compile and run Java programs using Ant. You can create directories, zip up files, delete directories and lots of other things.

Whenever I create a new Java project, I usually create an Ant build to go with it. Heck, I've even used Ant for web projects allowing me to push a website I'm testing into the localhost folder so I can view it with my web browser. I've even setup Ant to handle database creation, e-mailing updated files to my gmail account, and even ftping files to my live server. Talk about efficiency!

Talk about making my life easier.

Seriously, if you've not checked out Ant... you should. It's well worth it.

Bing, Twitter, and Google oh my

So, word on the net has it that you can now search Twitter tweets. How special is that.

Moments after I found this out... I could swear that Google decided to do the same darn thing.

While I'm not surprised by this action... I am amused that Google didn't announce that they had done it first. But leave it to Microsoft to try and wedge their feet into something where I don't believe they really belong.

Personally I think that Microsoft should leave the whole search thing to Google, Yahoo etc. They should just focus on what they do best... taking money from people and selling a sub-standard Operating System. (Wow, I sure do sound biased against them now don't I? Nah, not me!) :o)

I wonder if people will catch onto Bing... Google has become a household name and has been since 1999 ish. I know when I go to Google something... I use well Google. Even if I search something via Yahoo, or Msn (not very often mind you), I still call it googling.

Oh well, may the best *cough* Google *cough* search engine win.

SG:U Episode 4 - Power Issues

I'm guessing this last episode is number 4... if you put the first episode as a two part thing. I believe it was called Air, and was a 3 part story arc? Not sure.

According to Hulu, this episode is titled Darkness.

Last episode of Stargate Universe dealt with power issues in more than one way. The first power issue is the ship is running out of juice. The other power issue is that people don't trust each other. Dr. Rush for example, he wants to be all high and mighty... wants to be in charge. etc.

The interesting part of the episode was... no, not the part with the shower... lol No no, it was that you can tell groups of people don't trust other groups of people etc. The people back on earth seem to be trying ot tangle themselves in as well throug the communication stones.

You would think that after so many years, the people on Earth would listen before making irational decisions. They aren't on the freakin' ship now are they? How do they know what's best for the lives of others.

I'm assuming the lady that the Colonel visited is his... wife? Girlfriend? Shoot, how do you explain to someone that they're about to speak with their loved one, and yet they won't look like them at all.

Anywho, those are just some of the thoughts I had regarding this episode. We'll see what next Friday brings.

SG:U Episode 2

Okay, so I'm watcing the second episode of Stargate Universe. Uh, Desert Planet. Right...

So they have these stones which allows them to contact Earth at anytime. That's nice, they can keep in touch. How sweet.

Okay, so they're on this desert planet so they can find a way to get their air thing working again in order to survive.

What do they find on the plnet? Sand. Well and this thing that keeps buggin' them... and it looks like it likes water. Hmmm interesting, perhaps that's where all the water went to in the first place.

And a face just appeared out of the sand. (Yes I'm watching it as I type)

Typical how when you get too warm that you start seeing things. Oh yes, it always happens like that.

The 'kid' is rather annoying... sure he wants to understand crap... but shoot, he's no scientist.

Reminds me of an episode of Enterprise, where they were on a Desert Planet. Hmmm... probably not though.

The ex con is fun. Seems like he likes to threaten people with his weapons.

Obviously they'll have to get the air working again, 'cause that would suck fo rthem to be stuck on a ship.

I enjoy the thought of a mutany.

Loved the part where the guy is about to step through the gate and the scientist tells the ex con to shoot the guy. Classic!

"Why'd you do that?"

"He told me to."

And so the guy has a flashback of when he knocked up some gal. The swirrly thing comes back and wakes him up. He finds the lakebed, which is what they were looking for to begin with and help arrives.

I'm wondering what happened to the two deserters... that went on their marry way. Talk about getting rid of cast members you don't need/care about?

I wonder if they'll pop up later on episodes, and become enemies... oh let's hope not. That would be too cliche in my opinion.

Ex con is really cool. Motivating his commanding officer like that. Telling him to get up, that he has to make it. Sweet.

Nice how they incorporated the fact if you keep an object in the event horizon that the wormhole on the gate keeps open. Very cool.

And the ship goes on its way... with the air supply thing fixed. Allowing them to survive.

Not to mention some music about "Don't forget to breathe" playing over it all.

Well, except for the fact of the small sucker ship that was stuck to the vessel... that flys off when they're in hyperspace. Hmmm, interesting.

Yep, the adventure continues. Can't wait till next week. Love the show!

Let's Talk NCIS

So, on the latest episode of NCIS, Ziva asks for her job back, Gibbs tells her that she can no longer be a Masad Officer.

She tells Gibbs that she has already sent an e-mail to her father... (talk about a resignation letter eh?)... and she stands there waiting for Gibbs to sign the paper.

From the previews next week, it doesn't look like he signs it now does it?

Personally I think it's time they got rid of Ziva, time for a new character to fill the female shoes in the show. Too bad they got rid of the female director, she rocked.

Oh well... I'm sure eventually I'll get used to her... of course she's been on the show how long? Yeah um... shoot.

Stargate Universe

Okay... so I watched Stargate Universe the other night. This was the premiere episode.

I felt the episode jumped back and forth through time a little too much... I would have preferred it stayed where it was at the beginning with them being on the ship, instead of bam switching to a few days ago etc. We could have gotten the information from dialogue that the characters were saying etc.

One thing that bugged me about the episode was the way they recruited the kid... I mean come on, putting a top secret code thing in a computer game, and just wait till a dude can crack it? Then when he doesn't believe them, they beam him up to the space ship. Yeah um... what in the hell was that all about? That really didn't go over well for me... oh well.

The acting was a little rough, I'm sure it will get better. I enjoyed how the episode left off, making you thirst for more. Of course we have to wait a week and all of that... but hey, it's all good right? Right!

All in all, I would say it was an okay pilot. Can't wait till the next installment of it!

And then there was Twitter

Ah Twitter, yes you know the place. Where people talk about whatever is going on in their lives. It's a place for communication with other twits... no, wait... that's not the correct term um... other tweeters... no... what's the phrase I'm looking for? Oh yes, others that have been stung by the Tweeting Bird so to speak. Do birds sting? Well, if they don't this one sure does.

It's become one of the largest fads since Myspace, Blogging, and Geocities... (remember them? oh yeah, they're soon to be gone, if not already gone).

Twitter has become a household name. No one else has done microblogging quite like it.

When it comes to ways to put your tweet out there, there are hundreds of applications to choose from.

You can tweet from your phone, from your computer, from your mobile device (iphone, ipod touch, blackberry etc.) you can tweet just from about anywhere.

Twitter doesn't sleep... you tweet it displays.

You can even post links to your blog after they've been posted via Twitter.

Twitter has become the new RSS.

So, are you tweeting? If not, why not?

Go forth and tweet!