2050

Honestmonkey added a book review to the What happens in 2050? page. Check it out. Now only 41 years away. HM might even make it. Spooky.

Real Piracy

Honestmonkey wants to congratulate the Navy for their handling of the hostage crisis with the Captain Phillips of the Maersk ship. This was, in HM’s opinion, the only way for it to be handled. You cannot, under any circumstances, negotiate with terrorists or real pirates or hijackers. HM has always thought that nothing anyone says during “negotiations” is valid. That is, you can promise them anything, and then arrest them without following through on any of what you said. It is basically the same as duress, and no contracts made under duress are valid. Hijackers and terrorists need to know that the only thing they are going to get is pain and death.

HM has always thought that in the unlikely event that he is kidnapped, he should be considered dead. No negotiation should be done for his “safe return”. Kill the kidnappers, and if HM should happen to be rescued, well, that’s a bonus.

Free Comic Book Day - May 2

May 2, this year, is Free Comic Book Day! Honestmonkey is so stoked! He's not sure exactly why, but he loves FCBD. And so should you. Hey! Free comic books! What's not to like?

Watchmen

Quis custodiet ipsos custodies

Honestmonkey did.

Honestmonkey cannot see this movie with any eyes but those that have already read the novel. Through that filter, the movie is just fantastic. They changed enough that had you not read the novel, reading it now would still give surprises, and a bit different ending. Snyder did a fantastic job, the actors were great, this movie is epic. There were numerous references to the book, homages to specific pages or scenes.

That said, as others have said, it is a bit confusing if you didn't already have some idea as to what was going on. Major plot points occasionally pass by a bit too quickly. One thing which is kind of the entire impetus for the story is explained only in voice-over. And the movie tries to explain something that in the novel was not really explainable other than being a human foible.

Note that there are a lot of flashbacks, that is how the story is told. That might help in understanding what is going on a bit. HM saw it with a crowd of mostly comic book nerds, which was fun in itself.

The movie is violent and intense. But it’s a good story told well. Can’t wait for the DVD.

Shirts

Maybe someone will stumble upon this and help Honestmonkey out. He is looking for a shirt. More specifically, a button-down shirt that is "interesting". Ideally it would have some cool picture on the back (or front even) that isn't of a skull, or cross, or skateboard, or a motorcycle, or woman in a bikini throwing dice. It might be nice if the design crossed-over to the sleeves, perhaps. It would be nice if it was not the name of a store or designer.

It can't be a "young-mans" shirt, however. Honestmonkey is no longer a young man, and those shirts tend to bind in the upper arms or across the stomach. Usually HM prefers normal "dress" shirts, cotton. HM just wants a cool looking NON-T-SHIRT. You can get just about anything on a t-shirt. HM doesn't wear them for the most part. They are uncomfortable. The few he has are Supima cotton with a v-neck.

The idea HM has is this: think of someone walking down the street. Someone else has a picture (probably not too detailed) that is just a bit bigger than the back of a shirt and the sleeves. He runs up, slaps the picture on the back of the other person's shirt. It doesn't all stick, as it is too big, but enough sticks that it is recognizable. Some might bleed around to the front. Think Roy Lichtenstein maybe, or Peter Max, or Frank Miller even. Or perhaps something abstract. Take a picture, cut a piece out in the shape of a shirt.

This is apparently a tall order. Most of these types of shirts that have anything like this on them are motorcycle or bowling shirts. The bowling shirt wouldn't be too bad but they are invariably short sleeved and/or rayon or polyester. Short sleeved wouldn't be too bad, but HM has a number of Hawaiian shirts.

Cotton. Button-down. Older man's fit (not fat, just not a young skinny hipster type). HM has some Roundtree & Yorke shirts he likes, and a few Eddie Bauer, Cactus, Hagger Forever New, smattering of other kinds. That kind of thing. Just regular shirts, casual but not denim or work shirts. HM is not that artistic, so making his own design is problematic.

Any ideas?

DLink Router Problems

Honestmonkey has a DLink router, model DIR-655. Or rather, HM has a plastic brick. After applying a recent firmware update, the router stopped accepting any new data. It saves nothing. Rebooting, resetting, holding one's breath, counting backwards from 80 - none of these did anything to change the fact that the router no longer accepts data of any kind.

HM emailed tech support. They decided they couldn't help, and told HM to call. HM called. The tech support person was less than helpful, and seemed to be assuming that all customers were morons. After finally explaining the situation, which the tech guy (apparently in India) never quite got, he said to download the latest firmware update. "Did that." "No, no, it's being updated right now, wait an hour before you get it. Goodbye."

So, surprisingly enough, while Honestmonkey was on the phone with the tech guy, they were releasing a new version of the firmware. What amazing coincidence! Not that this helped at all, because the router doesn't accept new information! Not a password, not a setting change, not a new firmware update, not an old firmware update.

The router is a brick. Dead. Pining for the fjords.

Apparently Mr. Tech Support guy decided not even to save the case number he assigned to me because DLink does not have a record of it. Didn't want to record a failure, I imaging.

So now Honestmonkey has a plastic brick with the words "DLink Router" on it. It doesn't route anything however. And even though it's still under warranty they no longer wish to talk to HM.

My advice is to be wary of DLink products.

Twitter?

Honestmonkey does not understand Twitter. He has a Twitter feed, it's right there on the sidebar. He even updates it on rare occasions. However, he doesn't get it. What, exactly, is the point?

Perhaps because he is a boring old fart, and doesn't have much to "tweet" about, it seems pointless. And he doesn't want to waste money on text messages, or to bother figuring out how to Twitter from his phone.

But why would anyone think that other people needed to know exactly what they were doing or thinking every second of the day?

Actually, HM generally forgets about the Twitter thing until days later. "Honestmonkey should have tweeted that he found a particularly succulent bunch of bananas last Thursday. Drat."

Oh well. Perhaps he will find a use for it someday. Maybe he'll even get a Facebook account. Nah.