Rex and I went into the theatre to see "Avatar" with very low expectations. And we weren't disappointed. On the Strange scale (1-9) it rates a 2. Really, don't waste your money. I know some people are coming out of it saying that it's the best movie they've ever seen, but we're not hearing from those who leave lamenting that they'll never get their eight dollars and two and a half hours of their lives back.
The best description we've heard is it is "Dancing with Wolves" with blue people. And "Dancing with Wolves" is a much better movie.
To be fair, we missed the opening but through the grapevine it is told that there is little explanation of the scenario. We don't know how they found this planet, how they discovered the coveted "unobtainium" (which, I mean, really guys. Is this not the stupidest name for an unknown element?)
There is debate on the subject, but Rex and I are convinced that many of the ideas are ripped off directly from "World of Warcraft": the "floating mountains" look exactly like the floating mountains in the zone of Nagrand in WoW, the blue people (who are Night Elves?) ride their flying mounts, there are large mushroom growths very similar to those found in Zangermarsh and everything is phosphorescent just like Zanger.
Plus, add to that that the real focus of the movie is to show off future munitions - as humanity advances we're still dependent on weapons of mass destruction, that public opinion doesn't seem to count for squat and there never was any mention of a government keeping control.
News travelled slowly when the American West was being colonized, so the portrayal of the Native American as savage blight on the land was more believable (in "Dances with Wolves" and in American history) than the people in "Avatar" who, not only have instant communications but, get this: actually infiltrate the natives and have first hand knowledge of them and their ways (and, one would assume, more empathy).
But they're still portrayed as, what did the mad Colonel call them? Cockroaches? Puh-leeze! And speaking of the mad Colonel, you have to have the token asshole military man. Or do you? Nope, the entire ending war sequence was clearly put in to attract the testosterone laden 13 year old male. It was totally unnecessary.
Rex's associate suggested that it is the result of American guilt over the Iraq war and there's probably something to be said for that. But even with our hatred of the decision to go into Iraq, this movie does, in subtle ways, glorify war with the characters that it puts on screen the "awesome" military effects blah blah blah.
And that's how we characterize the movie generally: blah. We know that the critics are raving about the film which is further evidence of why critics should not be listened to, although usually the critics slam movies which Rex and I think do not think deserve the slamming that they get. In this case this film does not warrant the attention that it is getting.
It's crap. Forget it. Rent "Dances with Wolves" and play "World of Warcraft." It will be a much more fulfilling experience.
A friend of Rex's saw that we post "Walking 'round in Women's Underwear" every year and suggested that Rex might like to delve a little deeper into the comedian who created this little gem.
And, so we present another item from Bob Rivers (audio only - no video. Sorry, we know it sucks but is still, no less amusing).
Rex and I have searched the web trying to find a way to compile user controls into a library in Visual Studio, much the same way that one can compile web controls into a library using a class library. What we found was, in our opinions, unsatisfactory.
Originally using the techniques highlighted here we have, we think, come up with a pretty cool solution. This is for VS 2005 and higher - if you're using an older version then this might work or it might not. We simply don't know.
To Create:
Step 1: Create a new web site (not a web application, although we toyed with that for a while). Delete everything in the site that can be deleted (we're going to be starting from scratch) or select "Empty Web Site" from the project screen.
Step 2: Import any user controls you want in your library (any file with a .ascx extension) or create new ones.
Step 3: Give each control a namespace (this is necessary for calling it up later). You can do this in the ascx file (rather than the codefile which one would do if one were making a class library). In the control registration block, add:
classname='[your namespace and class name]'
For example:
<%@ control language='vb' codefile='rexscontrol.ascx.vb' classname='rexthestrange.rexscontrol' inherits='rexscontrol' %>
Your namespaces, of course, can vary - they're just for reference on the other end.
Step 4: Publish. On the publish dialog screen uncheck all options. The exception is that you might want to publish each control as a separate assembly, in which case check "use fixed naming and single page assemblies." At any rate, it is imperative to uncheck "allow this precompiled site to be updatable" as this will put the XML code in a separate file and we don't want this. We want it all to be in one nice neat little package.
Step 5: Open a DOS window (yes, a DOS window - or a console window if you want to call it that) and navigate to where you published the site. Go to the "bin" directory and get a listing. If you selected "use fixed naming and single page assemblies" then you will find a listing of one dll per control that you made. If you didn't there should just be one dll - for the whole site (or, soon to be, library).
Step 6: Now here's the cool part. When you publish a .net web site the dlls are named not, as one would expect, to the name of the project (or site) - that would be too easy and, besides, as the guy in the article I mentioned earlier pointed out, if you have two controls with the same name then confusion will ensue. So Visual Studio prefixes the name with "app_web_" and affixes the name with a hash that is created from the directory path. If you don't select "use fixed naming and single page assemblies" then you get one dll with the "app_web_" prefix and the hash code affix (with no name in between).
Either way that's really messy and not good for our library as that will cause confusion. This was causing us many headaches. Rex tried renaming the file, but this renders it useless (Visual Studio doesn't like that).
And then we stumbled on a post where someone mentioned ILMerge. ILMerge is a tool that takes several assemblies (dlls) and merges them into one. What is really cool about this is that it can take a single assembly and create a replica of it with a new name. You can download ILMerge here.
Once you have downloaded it (and added the location of the exe to your windows path) then, from your console (you are still in the console window, aren't you? and still in the web site's bin folder?) you simply type:
ilmerge /out:newdllname.dll olddllname.dll
And hit enter. Bingo. A new user control library has been born.
Step 7: In your project where you intend to use the controls simply add a reference to the dll and add the control as you would a web control (ie: add a "reference" directive to the page or add it to your web.config).
Step 6 - Revisited: But wait, there's more. If you did create multiple assemblies then you can still merge them all by using ILMerge, like so:
It's probably a good idea to create a batch file for this and keep it somewhere away from the publishing directory (remember that directory gets emptied on each publish) and make file references by full path names. Then, whenever you want to make a change to your library you can simply republish the site, run the batch file and you're done.
Step 7 - Revisited: Whenever you make a change to your library, any applications that you have that reference it will also need to be updated (because when you add a reference to a dll Visual Studio makes a copy of it. We've updated the original in Step 6 - Revisited, but not the copy.
But this is so simple. Open the "bin" branch of the tree in the Solution Explorer, right-click the dll in question and hit "Update Reference." A new copy of the dll will be copied over and you're back in business.
Pretty cool, huh?
Rex and I have tested this using Visual Basic and it works like a dream. It probably works in other languages like C# but we wouldn't know because C languages are, of course, for idiots.
This photograph doesn't highlight how it looks in real life, but this is the Strange Family tree this year. Rex decided to exchange some of his old incandescent pagan festival lights for some of those new LED models that they have out now.
And this is the result. What immediately came to my mind was that it looked like a scene from Blade Runner. Remember in Blade Runner that all of the lights (with a few ambient exceptions) were all fluorescent - and that's what Rex's tree looks like this year.
Those LED lights may seem cool, but they lack the warmth and coziness of the old fashioned version. Happy Pagan Festival (time to die).
I don't know how we missed it, but it was recently brought to Rex's and my attention that President Obama has been receiving criticism for bowing to Japanese Emperor Akihito during his recent Asian tour. According to William Kristol, during an interview with Fox News Sunday program, "...it's not appropriate for an American president to bow to a foreign one."
Perhaps someone should enlighten Mr Kristol. Firstly, to speak on Fox News reduces ones credibility to a minuscule degree amongst those of us who still believe that we have freedom of thought. Secondly, Akihito San is Emperor of Japan, not a President. Japan has no President - a faux pas of Republican parochialism which, in itself, further demonstrates why the Republicans are unfit to lead.
Thirdly, the assertion that Americans should not bow to anyone, even at the risk of giving offense to a major trading partner, is ludicrous to the extreme. Rex and I assert the contrary - to visit a foreign country and not offer the diplomatic courtesies of the host nation is inappropriate.
Mr Bush took the stance that America could "go it alone" - that America was so almighty powerful that no respect need be given to any nation. This attitude was demonstrated at the 2006 G8 Summit where Mr Bush showed himself to have no respect for foreign powers, firstly by catching the attention of British Prime Minister Tony Blair with the now infamous frat boy catcall "Yo, Blair" and later with the uninvited (and completely disrespectful) massage of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
So what would have been acceptable to these right-wing critics of Mr Obama? Perhaps high-five to the Emperor and a "Yo, Akibaby!" followed by a fond groping of Empress Michiko. Clearly not, because that would have been "shocking!" Oddly enough these people seem to think that it was alright when Mr Bush did it.
Rex was tellling me the other day that he looked up "hypocrite" in the dictionary and the entry said "see Republican". Together we decided that it was time for someone to stand up for Mr Obama - the press have been spending far too much time featuring the critics. While it's true that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, no one seems to acknowledge that it's the squeaky wheel that is probably broken.
So, from Rex and myself, we say, "well done, Mr President." The United States is not a collection of hypocritical, jingoistic frat boys, after all!
I don't know how we missed it, but it was recently brought to Rex's and my attention that President Obama has been receiving criticism for bowing to Japanese Emperor Akihito during his recent Asian tour. According to William Kristol, during an interview with Fox News Sunday program, "...it's not appropriate for an American president to bow to a foreign one."