Almost...

I've been claiming for months that I will be re-launching my vanity blogging site ( Dan Hugo dot com ) and yet it never happens.

Sort of a pain, but who reads what I have to say anyway? That's just a rationalization, since if I don't write anything nobody will read it. Eh.

As I write this, you can get to DanHugo.com and you'll see a design-free placeholder with some flickr photos and a yelp widget and whatnot. I am going to get off my butt, seriously. The code is written, there are a few things left to do.

My favorite late nighter

I caught Craig Ferguson on Bill Maher's Real Time on HBO on Friday night, and I was somewhat impressed that he's intelligent without being an idiot. Being an intelligent idiot myself, I feel I'm qualified to make that assessment.

Anyway, Maher usually has a comedian on in the chair next to him, and when it's DL Hughley I know we're going to get the same ol' same ol', and when it's Larry Miller you know you're going to get meandering and preachy palaver that makes you want to change the channel post haste! I like both of those comedian examples, but they are just plain no good in the panel format (which may be why DL's show didn't go for too long).

Craig, on the other hand, has that immigrant perspective, and he's lived life-- sometimes not for the best, but he doesn't pull too many punches from what I've seen, so he comes off to me as "real." Hearing him without the BLEEP of broadcast tv was also sort of cool, because he didn't go crazy, he just sounded like a normal Scottish guy having a laugh.

His Monday night show was one of a few he's done now and then where he blows off the monologue for something much more thoughtful, and once again he hand-delivers a decent message that still managed to make some people laugh even though it wasn't intentional (or didn't seem so). Personally, I think Jay Leno is the worst when it comes to this, and Conan isn't much better, and Letterman is right in there as well-- cheap, easy shots at the latest celebrity meltdown or divorce or whatever are throw-aways. If Craig really does "re-adjust" his aim, then I for one applaud him for taking a more intelligent-- and probably even funnier-- road.

Add to that his 15 years of sobriety as of Feb 18, and you've got a good guy. I'm watching.

This, that, the other thing

Howard Stern is engaged to Beth O as of some time Tuesday night. I was a far larger HS fan when he was on normal radio than I am now, so I haven't heard any of the transition from staunch anti- to pro-wedding Stern, but cheers to Beth for wearing him down.

Howard K Stern, on the other hand... what a spectrum of news for two guys with similar names. For several hours during the marathon Anna Nicole Smith coverage on your choice of cable news network, references were to "Howard Stern" only, with parenthetical corrections from anchors now and then as per the addition of the "K" to the name. Interesting times.

I have a 2006 Scion xB. So far, I'm not unhappy with the car, though I do miss my VW TDI Jetta... there is quite a bit to be said for 45-52mpg even when Diesel fuel prices in NoCal are above $3. In fact, some day when I drive to Phoenix I will be faced with having to STOP somewhere to gas up... something I am decidedly not used to. My last drive to Phoenix with the Jetta (a one-way trip, my sister now has the car) was 75mpg cruise controlled and non-stop. Whenever I heard every single comedian with a microphone asking why the astronut had a diaper while she was driving 900 miles, I thought to myself how that actually would be convenient (over-filling the Jetta and driving all-freeway, that range is actually possible).

It's been rainy and crappy in silly valley lately. Not horrible, and certainly better than the east coast, but it's not quite sunny days here just the same. Rain is good. I am not looking forward to the summer heat wave... if I'm still living here at that point.

And that's all I know. I must get my real blog up and running. If one person hits this blog and reads it, I'll re-double my efforts to get back into publishing my ramblings. Otherwise, maybe getting danhugo.com back online isn't worth the energy...

House and stuff

The series, House, is weird.

On the one hand, Hugh Laurie is an astounding actor. There isn't much argument against that, it's one of those universal truths.

On the other hand, it would be possible to have a spin-off series on Bravo about the families who get screwed over by his completely cavalier practice of medicine (call it "Top House" I guess), and another series on CourtTV that would follow the malpractice suits.

Can you imagine, if your toddler's arm was cut off thanks to an allergic reaction to ultraviolet light and that little diagnosis wasn't made before the bone saw started turning... the number of diagnoses that have been arrived upon through painful trial and error is simply amazing. I'd sue the guy just to be part of the masses.

I hate television. There is absolutely nothing on television worth watching. I've already dismissed Heroes and Studio 60 and 30 Rock and The Office and My Name is Earl and of course LOST was lost last season. It seems like TV is a huge magnet with spikes on it. It draws you in, but painfully so. I am disappointed.

I was actually trying to come up with some way to be able to watch tv more flexibly (via Sony's LocationFree TV, among other approaches), but it occurred to me that the time, energy, and most of all MONEY are not worth expenditure on such trivial pursuits. My brain is numb, and it's TV's fault.

Sarah Silverman is Hilarious

I love Sarah Silverman. If I had to pick 10 stand-up comics for a Favorites list, she would probably be on it. She's also just "off" enough to be interesting when she does the standard late night talk show gauntlet.

And that is why I would like to observe a moment of silence now for when her show on Comedy Central, The Sarah Silverman Program, is canceled. It appears that the first episode ran to completion, so I guess this should apply later tonight.

Finally, Top Chef 2 Ends

The judges table was interesting, but the editing was choppy and almost confusing.

When the sous chefs came out, there was the typical bashing which was sort of entertaining. The most interesting part was Sam mentioning the no-fish save, which brought back memories of the final competition from Top Chef 1, where the red-haired woman claimed credit for the desert that the other dude sort of handed to her.

Now that the two weenies are up there, I have to say it probably would have been more interesting to see Cliff and Sam at the very end, but this is the way it goes. Now that Marcel is throwing the other guys under the bus over the missing fish, I'm sure he's losing points-- the chef is in charge, last word, that's the way it is.

I think, as they're both sent away for the absolute final chit-chat, that Marcel will lose points for his managerial weakness, Ilan will lose points for staying safe. I have to say that Marcel really pushed it more than Ilan did, but it sounds like they're going to go with Ilan...

[final commercial... damn, get this over with so I can stop watching this dumb show]

Doh!

I went to the Bravo website (http://www.bravotv.com ) and clicked to see the live post-show... on that page, they reveal the winner. Looks like I was wrong. It also looks like their cell phone survey-- 56% for Ilan-- is a dull example of the wisdom of crowds.

Okay, the judges table... now that I know Marcel got the Silver, I thin they're going to ding him for being disorganized and immature, and that is in several sense, not just his "doesn't play well with others" issues.

And what an uncomfortable little man-hug at the end there.

Finally, I can pack my knives and go.

Top Chef Midcourse

Both chefs just did their thing.

Once again, some heavy-handed editing, and the commercial bumpers are hilarious. Though, to be fair, Marcel did have quite the crisis during his round.

With the editing in mind, it looks like Ilan is going to win. They've skewed the judge commentary toward a more Ilan-favorable outcome, and they definitely focused in on the chaos in the Marcel kitchen.

But we'll see what happens. The end really is near.

Top Chef and Heroes-Freedom

Tonight is the final episode of Top Chef on Bravo. Or rather, it's the first showing of said episode. One can never, ever miss anything on Bravo given their liberal re-play schedule.

I enjoy the show, even though it is horribly edited, and I am going to predict-- since the editing has been so heavy-handed-- that Marcel is going to take it. I think he is used to being as he has been (whether his apparent jerk-ness is simply a matter of editing or not), while the other finalist almost seems to be freaking out in his efforts to retaliate. Witness the botched step-up in part 1 right at the end (which is why, I guess, they needed to extend the show by about 10 minutes in the original run, since edited down to fit in the standard 60-minute slot).

I'm also referring to the Heroes series because I slept through the first new show two weeks ago and I realized that I could miss this week's as well (which I did) and not feel any worse for wear. For as goofy as Bravo's replay schedule is (as today they are replaying the entire Top Chef 2 season back-to-back leading up to the final show), it makes it painfully easy to catch their stuff. Heroes, on the other hand, plays twice (the re-play on SciFi on Friday), and I would rather not have tv shows like these stacked up in a TiVo or similar device.

So basically, even though Heroes was looking pretty decent, it's going the way of X-Files... I'll catch it in re-runs, or maybe online somewhere somehow, or maybe not at all. TV sucks.

Anyway, I'm putting my vig on Marcel for tonight, we'll see what happens...

On to Blogger DnD Templates

I took the plunge and switched to the new drag & drop template tool that Blogger has unleashed.

So far, I have to say that it is pretty usable, and it appears to have the added advantage of saving the widget content one might add to their personalized version of a template without losing it on a template change. So, kudos for that.

I'm wondering whether there isn't some completely generic page layout tool that someone might have created in Prototype or some other js toolkit. It would be nice to be able to deploy this functionality in a personal web app. Too much to know, even more to learn.

Top Chef Indeed

I've hooked myself on Top Chef on Bravo, and while I normally don't care for reality shows, I consider this more of a poorly-edited cooking show, so I'm consistent.

It is entertaining to watch the drama, but I do wish the editing wasn't so outrageously skewed to foreshadow outcomes. Between the in-show edits and the teaser trailers for the next week's episode, it's almost impossible to be surprised. At one point one of the contestants (nay, characters) is speaking and there is a late-night-comedy-style tone change as the apparently strung together the words they wanted to have him say. The one who is going to be getting the ax is invariably commenting early in the show about whatever it is that will be their eventual undoing.

Perhaps the taste is more complex than the presentation.

For what it's worth, I liked Mikey and I think Elia is a reasonable character if not a little annoying some times when she laments. Sam is probably going to be the winner... the final four probably are the better chefs when all is said and done.

I predicted the hair scenario, though I thought they would actually have chopped it off. Reminded me of a college prank-- though a legal prank should be easily reversible, this one would not have been. Buzz cut was my second choice, though... my first was some sort of Sharpie madness not unlike that experienced by Zach Braff in Garden State.

Oh well, it's entertaining, and very little bad singing.

Comediculous

This weekend I managed to catch some of Louis Black doing his most recent HBO special (Red, White, and Screwed I think it was), then I saw Louis C.K. doing his raunchy stand-up on HBO (Louis C.K.:Shameless), and then I just caught Demetri Martin. Person. on Comedy Central.

I love watching stand-up comedians. I think most of the people I've seen are pretty funny, and I think all of them possess a certain bravery that we all wish we had. It's one thing to get up and read a script in front of people, or point at your PowerPoint slides, or read off a cue card. Try getting up in front of a random bunch of people and trying to make them laugh at what you think.

I've seen Howie Mandel, Louis Black, David Cross, Laura Kightlinger, Alonzo Bodden, and Dwayne Perkins live. Seeing stand-up life makes a difference, though in some of those cases when you see the comedian on a talk show or a Comedy Central or HBO special, you end up seeing the same act that they were working on when you saw them live. That's sort of funny when you see what they've changed (if you have the mental bandwidth to store that away), but I almost always find myself saying "oh, this is the routine we already saw." That's not a good attitude, but honesty is not always a bowl of cherries.

When I was at Thuc's bachelor party in Vegas I had brunch with Dwayne Perkins, who is a good friend of Thuc's. He's a really interesting guy. I found out the evening before that "You look hilarious" is not a humorous comment to pay to a professional comedian when he's getting ready to go clubbing in Vegas. Well, it may have been humorous to some, but it was not well-taken by said professional.

I should go see a show.

Co-co-co-cold

It is cold in Sunnyvale.

The cold snap gripping the western part of the nation can be felt through many layers of clothing and at all hours, with a sharp chill in the air even with the evening sun still shining. "Sunny" indeed.

I don't turn the heat on at my place. Why? I'm an idiot. In addition to that, though, I don't like heating the whole place when I spend most of my time at the ol' computer anyway, so I dress warm and drink some hot beverages and all is well. But my my my is it cold.

I have an Oregon Scientific device with a remote sensor placed just outside, so the two are about 10 feet apart separated by the outer wall. As I type this it's 45F and 56F. I'll let you decide which is which.

Good times.

iPhony II

From an iPhone Article at Engadget:

The iPhone's shortcomings:

• No 3G. We know you know, but still, it hurts man.
• No over the air iTunes Store downloads or WiFi syncing to your host machine.
• No expandable memory.
• No removable battery.
• No Exchange or Office support.

The lack of WiFi sync seems like a huge downer... in other words, no sitting at Starbucks downloading last night's Battlestar Galactica episode, and no adding of extra hackery, etc.

iPhone v1.0 is, based on these missing features is overpriced and overhyped. DOA? That's where I'm betting my $1.

I'm still looking at the N80 or the coming N95 (hopefully a model with US-compatible 3G+ support) for my honest-to-goodness smartphone needs, and I am very very pleased with my Creative Zen Vision:M for media goodness on the go. Nokia phones run python...

iPhony

I had the Engadget web page open and reloaded it a few times once Jobs mentioned the 3 devices, as the inevitable unfolded. Very interesting.

Here's my take:

On the one hand, Apple has done quite well with iPod, and in fact they have changed everything in terms of personal media (from the device to interaction to distribution to personal media publishing ala podcasts, etc etc etc) and they've made it compatible with "my mom" so that it's accessible. Doing the same with personal video will probably be just as interesting.

On the other hand, I think Apple is the Centaur in the x86 race. That is, they're coming in with some different ideas and different ways of doing things, but they're goal is a 1% market share in 2008 with a single product at a high price point (though I would hope they'll roll out variations on a theme, who really knows?). Not that Apple will be bought up, but Apple has rocked the boat a little bit and they've used their amazing brand to amplify that rocking. Much like the non-Intel x86 companies made things better for those using the x86 (everyone from developers to integrators to re-sellers to end users), I think Apple will force the tide to rise, as will all boats.

I for one have enjoyed using my Nokia N70 "smart phone" on a daily basis. It's great, despite an annoying reset bug where it soft-reboots itself sometimes. The camera is great, the features are just fine, it can play video and audio, has an FM tuner, etc. However, I also have a palm pilot and an mp3 player. Why?

Because a device that can do everything doesn't always satisfy everything. I'll take my current phone and a really good media player (one of the Creative Zen products, something from Archos, etc) any day, and I'll be able to take a call while a video is playing!

Look for the standard "version 1 syndrome" to strike the iPhone out of the gate, and then watch for angst about scratched and fingerprinty touch screens, battery life, etc. I'll take an unlocked Nokia phone any day of the week...

Some day...

Long time no nothin'...

I'm trying out the new Blogger.com features. Well, some. I'm not going to switch to the wysiwyg layout tool, since I prefer manual html editing for the moment.

I've been in a little mental sinkhole lately regarding the re-deployment of my real personal blog-- which will be located in the same place at DanHugo.com when it does rise from its ashes. Over the summer I designed a flexible hierarchical database schema with flexible node types so that everything in what would be the CMS database is a general "node item," and every such node item can be treated in some ways like any other-- for example, anything can have a comment node attached to it.

As some may know, I prefer python to, say, php, so I've been playing with cherrypy and psycopg2 as I develop a little custom framework-like thingie to deal with this db backend. As always, I've included some supporting stored procedures written in pl/pgsql so the commitment to a python platform is not too rigid.

So one of these days I'm going to port my old vanity site content over to this new scheme and re-deploy the new world. Before and until then, I'm working on some "real" stuff of my own (which I may mention here soon) which may or may not be able to leverage this "universal schema" idea. I'm still not completely sure how practical it is, so the personal blog seems like a reasonable testbed.