For years I have been battling a continual problem where Samba file transfers to my mac would run like absolute crap. Horribly slow speeds, in the 30Kps range, rendered samba completely useless.

A google search today finally turned up a solution that worked PERFECTLY!!

sudo sysctl -w net.inet.tcp.delayed_ack=0

Running this in the terminal fixed it completely, I now have transfers at full speed.

This article was my savior.

Doc: You mean the car is out of gas?
Marty: Yeah, but it's no big deal, we have Mr Fusion right?
Doc: Mr. Fusion powers the flux capacitor, but the cars internal combustion engine runs on normal unleaded fuel, always has...

So I got to thinking about something today, specifically the line above from Back To The Future 3 when the Doc realizes they have to come up with an alternative means of propelling the delorion.

Why didn't the doc just build a freaking electric motor? Surely he's got the parts to do it in his blacksmith shop. If Mr Fusion can output the requisite 1.21 gigawatts of juice needed for the time jump using a banana peal, a candy bar wrapper, and half a Budweiser, surely they can drop something denser in (like, say, blacksmithing iron) and eek out a few extra kilowatts to power an electric engine!

This just suddenly popped into my head tonight while I was driving home from Kat's house.

Over the years I have gathered a vast collection of simply wild photos garnered from numerous websites. These images have stayed on my HD, and every so often I would browse them for a good laugh.

For some reason I don't quite fathom, I've decided to make this collection available for everyone else. Mind you, the contents of this archive are not for the feint of heart, or those with "strong Christian values." Fear this place, for it will change you.

The Wall of the Weird and Funny

So NBC has this new TV show called Heroes about people suddenly discovering they have amazing abilities. Based on this alone, I was not at all interested in watching the show. "Meh, yet another x-men ripoff." I didn't even bother putting it on the DVR, just didn't care.

Then I started hearing from friends that the show was actually alright. This escalated to Undermac raving about just how awesome the show was and how each episode was even better then the one before it.

So, at the behest of so many people's recommendation, I downloaded the four episodes that have aired and last night Me, Kat, and Robbie sat down and watched them. Here's how it went:

1st episode: Eh, that was ok, lets see what happens next.
2nd episode: Oh, ok, that was cool, lets keep going.
3rd episode: Whoa, quick, get to the next one!
4th episode: What do you mean you only have four?! I WANT MORE DAMMIT!

This show rocks, I mean really really rocks. I kinda knew something was up when I grabbed episode 4 and saw the 25 THOUSAND peer count on the torrent. This thing is bigger then Lost.

It's like if you took the X-Men, backed up to before there was backstory, and then threw in some X-Files and John Doe elements. Then, you went around selecting near-unknown cast members from dozens of popular geek TV shows. Every person on this show will give you that "Hey, I think I've seen him on something else" kind of feeling. The most obvious one is Milo Ventimiglia, best known for his recurring role as Jess on Gilmore Girls.

The acting has been superb so far, the story is very interesting, and the characters are so likable and interesting. I can't wait to watch more of this show.

It's the fall, so movies are getting more intense and serious as studios start shooting for those golden statues. Thusly, we've got some pretty heavy trailers out now.

The death of Princess Diana left many people speechless, but none so more then the royal family. The Queen of England placed a moratorium on any member of the family speaking about Diana's death. This is what the film The Queen is about, the events within the monarchy following Diana's death.
The thing that impresses me most about this is the casting. They've found actors who all look just like the real living people, but prettier. Take note of the actor playing Prince Charles. He looks just like him, but more handsome. It's like if you took all the blue-blood out of the blue bloods.

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In Fur, Nichole Kidman plays the wife of a photographer. When she discovers this strange man living in an apartment above hers, played by Robert Downey Jr, he introduces her to the world of the sideshow. What follows is a journey of self discovery as she begins her own photo project about this world of rejects. I'm thinking this is a kind of Garden State meets Pleasantville type film.

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When ever John Malcovich and Jeremy Irons have starred together in a film, it's always been an amazing piece of work. I first fell in love with this duo when I saw them together in Man in the Iron Mask playing two of the three musketeers. Because of this, I am actually very excited about Eragon. Based on a series of young adult films, Eragon is your basic underdog story about a stable boy who is discovered to be the next dragon rider, destined to overthrow the evil king.
The plot is textbook juvenile cheese, however this movie looks to be anything but juvenile. Alas, it'll be hard pressed to beat out Dragonheart and Reign of Fire as best dragon films of all time.
As for Jeremy Irons? I can never hear his voice without picturing Scar.

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Shia LaBeouf. You've probably never heard his name, you don't know who he is, but if you looked at his IMDB page you'll likely recognize his roles. Most notably, he was the main character in Holes, but I will always remember him as the Constantine's side kick, Chaz Kramer. Shia is playing the younger version of a character shared by Robert Downey Jr (yeah, he's in this one too) in the movie A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints.
The film is about a young man growing up in Queens, NYC. When his best friend is gunned down right next to him in the middle of the street, he leaves New York and his family to find a better life for himself. Twenty years later he gets a call from his mother; His father is dieing of cancer. This coming of age story has him returning to New York to convince his father to go in for treatment.
Rosario Dawson co-stars as the love interest in the film.

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Rupert Grint (that's Ronald Weasley of the Harry Potter films) stars in this quirky film about a boy who takes a job as an assistant to a very eccentric retired actress. I simply can't describe how amazing this movie looks, just go check out the trailer for Driving Lessons.

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Chow Yun Fat and the director of Hero & House of Flying Daggers bring you Curse of the Golden Flower.
If you've seen Hero, House of Flying Daggers, or Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, then you know what kind of movie this is.

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Kate Winslet and Jennifer Connely star in a film that appears to be about a love triangle of affairs, all surrounding the families of these two children. At least I think that's what it is, the trailer for Little Children isnt very informative. The train sound did get my fight-or-flight instinct revved up tho, it's cut with a very intense editing fashion.

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On average, twenty six people kill themselves every year by taking a leap off the Golden Gate Bridge. The Bridge tells the stories of the twenty four who jumped in 2004.

I don't have time to do a full trailer roundup right now, but I couldn't let this slide.

Jesus Camp

When I first saw the link for this trailer I just passed right over it, it sounded totally pointless. But today Multiplex comic made a mention of it, or rather, just had a reaction to it, and I went to see what it was about.

I couldn't help but watch this trailer and think, how are these people any different then Muslim radicals? Some of these people make Al'Quida look downright normal! It's no wonder America is being targeted when they see shit like this and think that it's how we are.

I mean, god damn, what the fuck!

This looks simply amazing. As if the brilliant rotoscoping of A Scanner Darkly wasn't enough, a french studio has made another gorgeous piece. Renaissance takes place in Paris, circa 2054, when corporations are the new government. I can't begin to explain just how amazing this movie will be, just watch the trailer.

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Apple now has the teaser trailer for Transformers, and yes that is Megatron squashing the Mars rover.... don't ask.

The Good: Peter Cullen and Frank Welker will be reprising their roles as the original Optimus Prime and Megatron. I also would have accepted Gary Chalk and David Kale, who played those roles in the BeastWars generation.

The bad: They've changed the back-story. The transformers will now arrive on earth from space in our modern time. The original plot line had them already on earth, having crashed here centuries before, and being awakened by a volcanic eruption.

The ugly: "A Michael Bay Film"

For all that this movie has going for it, it's probably gonna suck.

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Forest Whitaker is actually a pretty decent actor, but it's been years since he's had a role that we could take seriously. The Last King of Scotland has him playing a genocidal president in Nigeria, and it looks good.

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Doctor Charlie Keegan has been caught swindling his elderly patients. As punishment he is sentenced to six months working in a nursing home. The trailer for Waltzing Anna is awfully compiled, but the movie should be pretty entertaining.

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Finally Jon Heder gets a role that can be respected... Roger has no self-esteem and a Grade-A anxiety disorder, so his friend (David Cross) enrolls him in a confidence construction class taught by none other then Billy Bob Thorton. The class is a success, and Roger gets his girl... until his own teacher starts to move in on her. School For Scoundrels looks to be absolutely hilarious, I can't wait.

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Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin.
Got your attention yet? The Departed is about an undercover infiltration of the Boston Mafia, and frankly it looks amazing.

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Giovanni Ribisi (Boiler Room, Gone in 60 Seconds) is one of my favorite actors, there's just something about him that is awesome. So, when I see that he's playing alongside James Marsden in a movie about real-life mobster Donnie Brasco, I get excited. Then when I look at the cast list and see that the movie also has Dennis Hopper, and my alltime favorite actor Val Kilmer... I get REALLY excited. Written and directed by the same man behind last year's surprise Oscer winner, Crash, 10th and Wolf should be very good.

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Yes it's going to be awful, but it's also going to be a lot of fun to watch. The Covenant.

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While we were sitting in Hall H at ComicCon, waiting for Kevin Smith to show up, Warner Brothers played a ten minute preview from Beerfest. If you liked SuperTroopers, you will like this movie. That's all I'm going to say.

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Russell Crowe plays an investment banker who inherits a vinyard from his uncle. When he goes to the vinyard with the intent to sell it, his life starts to take a bit of a turn. The trailer makes A Good Year look like a romantic comedy, but I've been fooled before. I do enjoy Russell Crowe, so this should be good all the same.

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Better late then never... Zoom just came out in theaters Friday, and puts Tim Allen as the reluctant leader of a new team of superhero kids. The film seems to be trying for the campy comic style that made SkyHigh such a surprisingly good film. Tim Allen seems to have been watching a lot of House, because his character is a spitting image of Hugh Laurie's award winning TV character... sarcastic and quick witted.

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Jason Statham is once again playing a hitman on the run. Can you say "typecast?" This time he's only got 24 hours to put his affairs in order before he dies from a poison inflicted adrenal block. Basically if he stops fighting, he dies, or something. I like Statham's brand of high-octane action as much as the next guy, but can we please get something new? Crank.

So I had pretty much stopped doing these, but after seeing all the amazing movies coming out this fall, I just had to do another Trailer Roundup.

As WWII was picking up steam, the USA sent some of it's hopeful pilots over to England and France to assist in their airforce. These pilots were generally looked down upon by their French peers, until they proved themselves in combat. This story got a little bit of coverage in Pearl Harbor, and has been told in many other movies too, but I'm glad to see it being told again with more modern visuals. Jean Reno co-stars in Flyboys.

Once again this year we have several sets of movie twins. The first pair is about magicians in the 1940s (give or take a decade). The Illusionist and The Prestige. Both movies have amazing castings (Illusionist is Edward Norton & Paul Giamatti. Prestige has Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, and Michael Caine, directed by Christopher Nolan), and look to be simply excellent.

The second set of twins isn't on Apple Trailers yet. Both movies are about famous unsolved murder cases in the 1950s. Hollywoodland is about the suicide of George Reeves, the first man to play Superman. Adrian Brody is the leading man for the movie, with Bob Hoskins and Ben Afflek playing supporting characters. Afflek is portraying George Reeves, and from the trailer I think this may be the perfect role for him.
The second twin in this set is The Black Dahlia, staring Josh Hartnet. This is about a famous and gruesome murder of a young actress named Elizabeth Short. In this case I think Hollywoodland is going to be the more entertaining of the two, but Black Dahlia will still be good. It's directed by Brian De Palma, who did Scarface and The Untouchables.

I heard rumors that Silvester Stallone was making a new Rocky movie, but I didn't believe them. I mean, come on, the guy's 60, just how much boxing can he still do? Well Rocky Balboa seems to be playing off that fact, showing Rocky as a long since retired fighter. When a computer virtual fight pits him against another heavyweight and predicts him as the victor, Rocky starts to wonder if he really could. My prediction? Million Dollar Baby 2.

Along the vein of dark humor movies like Art School Confidential and The Royal Tenenbaums, Running With Scissors looks to be delightfully dark. Augustin Burroughs was raised in a fractured family, two very overly rich parents who don't know the first thing about being a couple or raising a child. So, should it be any surprise when his mother signs Augustin's guardianship over to her shrink? This is gonna be funny, very very funny. Alec Baldwin co-stars as Augustin's father.

Another movie with Alec Baldwin, Mimi's First Time. Mimi is your typical spoiled rich girl, raised by a golddigger of a mother. So what does a girl like her do when she turns 18? Why, follow in her mother's footsteps of course, and steal away her step-father. I would completely write this movie off if it wasn't for the simple excellent cast. Carrie-Anne Moss plays the mother, with John Goldblum and Luke Wilson in supporting roles. They might just be able to save this awful film.

This is sure to be absolutely visually stunning. The Fountain puts Hugh Jackman (another of his six movie's this year) as a spanish conquistador who discovers The Fountain of Youth (aka, The Tree of Life) and uses it across a thousand years to keep his wife alive. The movie takes place in three years (1500, 2000, and 2500 A.D.) as he returns to the tree to once again capture its waters and save his wife (played by Rachel Weisz) from death. The visuals remind me a lot of What Dreams May Come starring Robin Williams.

Speaking of Robin Williams, he will have a small supporting role in Ben Stiller's new movie, Night at the Museum. NATM puts Stiller as a new night guard at the Museum of Natural History, where things get decidedly unnatural once the lights turn off. This looks to be a kids film, and I'm not too impressed, but it could be fun.

Brad Pitt stars in a new film called Babel, playing a man on vacation with his wife in Morocco. One of three stories in the movie is about his difficulty finding help after his wife is hit by a stray bullet while riding on a bus. The film deals with problems communicating between peoples and cultures. It looks to be a lot like Syriana, with each story occurring separately, but somehow all connecting in the end.

This was a huge hit at Comic-Con. 2000 people packed one of the presentation halls to see the first trailer for the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated movie. It's darker, more serious, and falls back to its roots in the original comics and live action films. TMNT fans are loving this!

When a planetwide epidemic leaves the human race no longer able to reproduce, the world falls into chaos as all mankind loses hope. So when a single woman is found carrying a child, Clive Owen agrees to go to no lengths to ensure that she is kept alive and makes it to scientists trying to save the human race. Children of Men. Based on the novel by P.D. James, this has deep echoes of 12 Monkeys, but with less crazy people.

American Hordcore is a documentary about the rise of Hardcore Punk in the USA. Could appeal to some people, not so much to me.

Last year's comedy Waiting... gave a hilarious view into the world of chain sitdown restaurant staff. This year Dane Cook sets to do it again, but this time for the big-box retailer store (Sams Club, Costco, etc). Employee of the Month is going to be absolutely hilarious.

Stephan has a condition. He can not tell the real world apart from his dreams, so when he starts to fall in love with the girl next door, both worlds turn upside-down. Brought to you by the creative geniuses behind Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I give you The Science of Sleep

Parker Posey (Superman Returns) stars as a mature business woman trying to finally discover her own sexuality and experience an orgasm. Danny Devito co-stars in The Oh in Ohio.

The US vs. John Lennon is a documentary about John Lennon's political activism during the Vietnam War. I love movies like this, so I expect to enjoy it.

Is it any surprise that a studio would back a jewish version of A Big Fat Greek Wedding? After all, they're Only Human.

I'd just like to take a moment to mention all the people who were at comic-con that I didn't find out about until after I got home Saturday night, with no plans of going on Sunday. Add this to the things that I DID know about, but didn't get to see... grrrr!

I'm exceptionally annoyed that I missed the RoosterTeeth booth, especially considering that we kept seeing people with their shirts. I should have known they had a booth!

Next year I gotta remember to hit all my favorite artists to see where they'll be.

Part One

Sometimes I go through these periods where I'll pick a subcategory in my MP3 collection and just play the hell out of it, finding songs that I might not have noticed before (yes, my collection is that big). Lately I've been working my way through the Blink 182 discography.

Most of their albums, especially the earlier garage band stuff, has no appeal to me. It's just too punk for my tastes. Their later albums, however, like Enema of the State and their self titled album, are simply excellent. Good lyrics, great rhythm, and an excellent grasp of melody and harmony.

The other day I was at Wal-Mart with Mom, and noticed a Blink 182 greatest hits album. I was pointing out a couple songs for Mom, and she mentioned that Blink had broken up. I hadn't heard anything about this, but it didn't surprise me much. She mentioned some quote by Tom DeLonge that they've reached a different time of their lives.

This immediately made me think of my previous post. Blink is another band that, like Green Day, has had a drastic change in their sound as they've gotten older. All three are married with kids (Travis married twice, with three children). My immediate reaction to this was thinking that they must just have reached a point where music was not the center of their lives. While I can respect that, at the same time I'm left thinking "If Green Day can work their family lives into this, why can't Blink?"

After doing some google searching, and reading a very in-depth Wikipedia article, I found out they broke up over a year ago. Kinda surprised I hadn't heard this before... There doesn't seem to be any concrete information from the band itself, but it seems that Mark felt alienated when Tom started up a side project with Travis. It finally culminated at 2005's Tsunami Relief charity performance, when the band dissolved just a few hours before they were set to go on.

Frankly, to find out this was all just some spat between the band members leaves me with much less respect for them. These guys are older then me and had been playing together for over ten years. They can't work out their differences as friends? In an interview last May with Tom, he said he hasn't talked to any of his former band-mates in over a year. That's some pretty deep resentment...

Welcome to the music industry, where the average maturity level is "adolescent".

Technically the band lists themselves as being on indefinite hiatus. Plenty of other great bands have come back from worse break-ups then this. One wonders what kinds of changes to expect in their music after such a musical divergence. All three members have gone on to work on different projects with different bands.