Author Archives: Ron Bieber

Movies: Batman Begins

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Saturday we went to see Batman Begins, the newest in the Batman series. To be honest, I was expecting a sub-par movie considering the ways in which the Bat-movies have been done since the original, but this one seems to go back to the darkness and mood of the first Batman film.

The film tells the story about how the Batman came to exist, from the murder of Bruce Waynes parents through Bruces subsequent childhood and quest to understand criminal behavior later in life. It tells the story of where the idea for the Batman came from, where the Batcave came from and how he gets all of those really cool gadgets.

Christian Bale is great as Bruce Wayne, though I have to say he does look kind of weird in the bat suit. Not sure what it is, but he just doesn’t look right in the cowl. This incarnation of the Bat is actually angrier than we’ve seen Batman in the previous movies. While Bale pulled it off, my vote is still for Keaton as the #1 Bat.

From the story line perspective, you can tell that a lot of thought went into it – something you haven’t seen in the Batman movies for years . Everything ties off and makes sense. The criminals, while menacing, are not over stated. They fit in the story, rather than being there for the sake of getting another big star to play a super villain.

One walks out quite satisfied that she has learned everything there is to know about where the Batman came from.

I haven’t walked out of a Batman movie satisfied since 1995 when the first Tim Burton directed Batman hit the theaters. Batman Begins was a refreshing addition to the growing list of super hero related movies coming out in theaters. Action packed and fun, and the really dark Batman we all grew up admiring for his rage against injustice. The best thing about this movie though, is it goes back to the basics about what Batman has always been about : a very angry guy out to make sure justice is served.

An iPod for Fathers Day

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Fathers Day PresentFor Fathers Day, Jonna got me a 20 gigabyte iPod. I wasn’t really sure I wanted one, because about five years ago she got me a Rio Lyra and I never used it. Part of this was because you had to install a card reader, and the software to use it and I was running Linux. The second part was that you really couldn’t fit that much in 128 meg.

Tom the Architect and Keith the Team Lead both have them and love them though. So I have been thinking about it … I just wasn’t sure I wanted to make the investment in something I might not use.

Well, this iPod is something. I’ve got every Steve Vai song I own on this puppy along with most of the other significant stuff that I listen to on a regular basis. I spent all day yesterday just pulling songs from my CD collection onto the iPod. As it stands right now, I still have 16 gig free.

This thing is freakin’ awesome.

Now I just need time to listen to all of it. What I really need is something that hooks it up in the car. I can’t tell you how many CD’s I have lying around from being in the car. Even worse, much of my time yesterday was just figuring out what CD was where, as nothing was in the correct case due to switching CD’s while driving. For me at least, if they have something that can actually hook one of these things to the car, it will make for a much safer driving experience, and much less car cleaning when we want to take the top down in the Jeep on the weekends.

BTW … thanks to Tom the Architect for answering Jonna’s questions during the “research phase”.

Finally, thanks honey for the gift. I love it, and I love you.

Recording Progress While Learning The Guitar

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After my two guitar related experiences this year, both being able to meet Steve Vai in person and my visit to the grave of Randy Rhoads I guess you can say I’ve been more inspired than previously to continue learning the guitar. Both were life goals that actually were able to have a leveling effect on me mentally as to what I wanted to accomplish by playing the guitar and making me realize that it was more for personal satisfaction than to actually do something with it. This shift has helped a lot to relieve the sense of personal failure I used to have every time I picked up the guitar.

However, once I got leveled mentally, the physical world kicked in. Over the last few months I have had more than the average trouble with arthritis / tendonitis flare ups (a problem I’ve had since my mid-twenties), which have made it hard to even think about practicing. So I haven’t been able to do it as much as I had originally wanted to.

This aside though, I’m getting more pleasure out of it now than I used to and decided it was time to start taking snapshots of my progress as I learn new things. I can’t trust myself to keep backup tracks on the GNX4, as I keep doing new takes over the old ones, so I decided periodically to grab the files off of the GNX4 and create mp3’s out of them and put them somewhere.

Now the question is where to put them. I decided it might be a good thing just to throw them up here as a place outside the house where I know they will be backed up. Now, once I do that, I might as well make them visible, just for the hell of it.

So here is my latest project. Since the visit to the Rhoads grave site in May, I have basically been living on steady diet of the Ozzy Tribute album, which has also renewed my awe at the song Mr. Crowley, so I decided to start learning it.

I’m starting with the outtro solo, since that probably one of my all time favorite solos. I currently have the first 41 seconds down in a state suitable as a snapshot of where I am. I hope to do this periodically so that I can come back and listen to them as I progress.

Before you listen to it, let me just say that I know the first part isn’t right. I’ve talked before about how my speed just isn’t where it needs to be, so I took the liberty of modifying the first part into something I can actually play. Rather than the fast triplets on the album, I’m adding an extra note to the end of each phrase, so that I can actually play it.

So, here it is. My first public snapshot of where I’m at. Overall I don’t think it sounds too bad, and am actually quite proud of this one. It’s probably the first time in a long time that I can actually listen to something I’ve done and go “Hey, that’s me!”.

For the record, this was recorded using my Ibanez JEM on the GNX4, again sitting on my bedroom floor. I haven’t mastered the whole punching in / out thing, so this was all done in one take.

Steve Dahl Analyzes the FTC Ban on Kevin Trudeau

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For those of you who have seen the latest Kevin Trudeau infomercial where he claims to have a cure for cancer, Chicago Radio personality Steve Dahl has posted his analysis of how Kevin can be out selling products on TV again, despite the FTC ban against him.

For those of you who don’t remember Kevin, he was the Mega-Memory guy on TV back in the 90’s.

All I know is I bought the book back then, read it, and still have to ‘do the math’ to figure out how old I am.

Mandriva Aquires Lycoris

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I received an announcement today on the Lycoris mailing list stating that Mandriva (formerly MandrakeSoft, creators of Mandrake Linux) have acquired Lycoris. Lycoris was started by Joseph Cheek in an effort to create a user friendly, Linux environment that was “easy for everyone”.

I actually bought the Lycoris system back when it was Redmond Linux – before the name change. I had taken cursory looks at it and thought they were on the right track. The main thing I didn’t like about it was the use of the KDE Desktop Environment. For some reason, I just find GNOME a much more comfortable environment to use.

For some reason, neither one of these distributions really caught on with me. I went from Debian to Redhat, with a brief stint of using Suse exclusively (version 9.0-9.2) before moving to Fedora, which I am very comfortable with and have been using since late last year.

That said though, it’s cool to see a guy start a company with good intentions and be bought without having gone bankrupt. I wish Lycoris luck under their new ownership. I’m definitely curious to see what new products come out of the merger.

That Star Trek:TNG Kid has a blog …

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So I’m sitting around last night watching VH1’s 100 Greatest Kid Stars, hosted by Christopher Knight.

One of the kids they brought up was Wil Wheaton, the kid from Star Trek : The Next Generation. As I’m watching the show, I hear him say something about his blog and make a mental note to check out his blog the next time I’m on-line.

Now, normally with mental notes, they last for about 3 minutes and are never found again and I never remember to look at what I thought I needed to look at. But when I woke up this morning the first thought I had as I went through the news was “… wait a minute, I have to check out that Star Trek guys blog”.

Wil, who used to play Wesley Crusher on Star Trek : The Next Generation, is now an actor, writer, blogger, and geek. His blog, wilweaton.net, is actually a pretty interesting read. He’s definitely got a sense of humor, as can be seen on his FAQ page. This blog just might become a regular read for me. It’s definitely gotten my curiosity up on his books, Dancing Barefoot and Just a Geek. I just might have to pick them up sometime.

Now one might ask, “What could I possibly get out of reading that guy from Star Treks blog”? Well, I found a reference to The Geek Code, apparently a sign of status in the geek community. Now I have one. Do you?

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.1
GIT d- s:-- a C++@ ULS+++@ P+++@ L+++>$ E@ W+++$>$ N+@ !o !K-- 
w+++@ O@ M !V-- PS+>$ !PE !Y+ PGP>$ t+>$ !5 X+++>$ !R- tv+++>$ 
b++>$ DI++ !D G>$ e? h--->$ r+++@ y+++
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

To decode the above code, copy it and paste it into the Geek Decoder.

Movies: The Machinist

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The MachinistYesterday Jonna and I rented The Machinist, a movie starring Christian Bale and Jennifer Jason Leigh and directed by Brad Anderson. We had remembered seeing the preview at the show and it looked like a really dark movie definitely worth a shot on video. It was definitely worth the shot.

The movie is about a machine worker who hasn’t slept in “about a year”. He is not sleeping or eating, and his weight has dropped to under 120 pounds. Christan Bale has never looked worse, choosing to completely emaciate himself for this role. His appearance alone is scary. He doesn’t look healthy at all and one may find themselves distracted with just how bad he looks. It really added a sense of realism to the story, even though it was extremely painful to look at.

The Machinist does a really good job providing a look at the effects that guilt can have on ones mental and physical well being. From this perspective, the movie was an excellent piece of work. The acting was incredible. I had only seen Christian Bale in the movie American Psycho (which I also liked by the way). This movie was a really different kind of movie and showed his versatility as an actor.

Overall I really liked the movie and what it was trying to express. However, the movie doesn’t move quickly — at all. You really need to be patient to get to the end of the film. Things plod along at a pretty slow rate and the characters shift locations almost immediately, jostling you into a “what the hell did I miss?” mentality. Later in the movie, the location shifts make sense, but you have to get to the end of the movie. There were definitely a few points where things weren’t moving fast enough that I wanted to just start reading or something just until “something started happening”. So be prepared for some slow story movement.

The thing about this one is, the payoff at the end of the movie ties everything together and makes the time spent well worth watching the movie. Its strange to say that, as I’m normally impatient sitting through slow moving stories, but this one was well worth the time.