Happy 4th!

Happy Independence Day!

fireworks

Our fireworks viewing experience was a little more interactive this year: the wind direction was blowing the ash, smoke, and debris right overhead, so remnants of the shells (and sometimes still glowing embers) were dropping into the crowd around us at the Largo City Park. So in addition to oooh’ing and aaah’ing at the spectacle of the fireworks, you had to keep your eyes peeled for falling stars. My daughter had collected quite a pile of dubious “souvenirs” after the 30-minute show was over.

fireworks debris

Still, a good time was had by all, and it was a great show as usual. I made sure to send a few photos and a short video of the fireworks to my wife and sister in China, so they could have a little bit of home while overseas.

Bonding through Star Wars

A few months ago my daughter and I watched “Star Wars: A New Hope” together. We had been playing through Lego Star Wars on the Wii and had ridden Star Tours together over at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and she was really into the characters. Considering I was younger than her when “ANH” was released (I remember seeing it in the theater with my parents and falling asleep during the second showing), I figured she was ready for the full experience.

She loved it!

Of course, she latched onto the whole Princess Leia thing, since she loves princesses, but she really got into the other aspects of the movie as well. By the end, when the Death Star exploded, we were both cheering together … it was a really cool bonding sort of moment.

My ultimate “proud father” moment happened early last month when she was selected as a padawan in the Jedi Academy show over at Disney:

battling Darth Vader in Jedi Academy

This weekend, since my wife is away, we started watching the other movies. So far we’ve gotten through “The Empire Strikes Back” (she was floored when Darth Vader proclaimed he was Luke’s father, as I remember being when I saw it in the theater), “Return of the Jedi” (ugh, she liked the Ewoks, I’ll have to work on that 😉 but she was happy Luke and Leia were twins), and started “The Phantom Menace.” She’s very interested (as we all were) in how little Anakin becomes the formidable Sith Lord from the later movies.

It’s a cool experience, watching these again with her …

WIJFR: Outcast of Redwall

When ferret Swartt Sixclaw and his arch enemy Sunflash the Mace swear a pledge of death upon each other, a young creature is cruelly banished from the safety of Redwall. As he grows, he seeks revenge on the people of Redwall and finds himself embroiled in a hostile battle with far-reaching consequences.

I’ve finished the last of the Redwall novels I will be reading, “Outcast of Redwall.” As I mentioned in my last post, the repeating formula is getting tiresome for me. My daughter will probably continue to read the rest of the novels, but I’ll just have to hear what goes on from her.

This installment of the series probably should have had a different title: Veil the ferret almost seems like a secondary character. He’s not even the titular “outcast” until about 170 pages in! The main thrust of the story revolves around the badger lord Sunflash the Mace (son of Bella from “Mossflower“) and Swartt Sixclaw the ferret warlord as they try to track each other down. The usual supporting cast of creatures is present, as is the secondary storyline that eventually ties into the main plot. The extra variable in the formula is Veil: a (archtypically evil) ferret raised by the peaceful creatures of Redwall Abbey. Will he end up being good, or evil (does his name give that surprise away?).

That’s really all I have to say about this one …

China bound

My wife and sister left yesterday for a 10-day trip to China. They’re currently about 6 hours into their 12 hour flight from Toronto to Beijing. If you’re interested in keeping up with them, you can follow my sister’s China blog (one dumpling at a time 😉 ).

Microsoft Security Essentials

Microsoft is getting into the anti-malware market.

Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) is a replacement for Windows Live OneCare and, I think, Defender. Did I mention it’s free? Paul Thurrott has a good write-up on MSE on his SuperSite for Windows.

Since I’m already running the Windows 7 release candidate, I figured why not give this a try as well? I downloaded the free beta, uninstalled AVG Free, and installed the new software:

Microsoft Security Essentials

I’ll keep an eye on it for the next few weeks and see  how it goes …

Icon Michael Jackson Dies

Wow.

Michael Jackson was pronounced dead at a hospital Thursday after suffering cardiac arrest at his Los Angeles home, marking a sad end to the life of a man who had been a global pop icon since childhood.

“Thriller” was the first album (cassette) I remember buying. My sister and I went in on it together. And I’m still a little ashamed to admit that I owned a zipper jacket similar to the one he wore in the music video for “Beat It” (except I had a black one). 😳

Yeah, he was weird, messed up, and downright crazy over the past two decades, but he’s still a legend. RIP.

And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the passing of another icon, Farrah Fawcett, on the same day. 🙁

I hate those fake AV trojans!

Today I had to clean another one of those fake anti-virus programs off of a machine at work. This one was called Personal Antivirus and bore a striking resemblance to AVG Free (which I use myself and usually recommend to others).

Here’s the AVG console:

AVG Free (real)

And here’s Personal Antivirus:

Personal Antivirus (fake)

Look familiar? In this particular case, neither our corporate Symantec anti-virus nor Malwarebytes (both with current definitions) detected the fake program. I eventually had to clean it off manually myself.

These things are really sneaky. How can we educate the average user to tell these two apart? I mean, other than the fact that they had to click on something in a web browser to get the fake one installed in the first place, once “installed” they look and act like the real thing (well, except for all the fake alerts they throw up). Arrrrgh!

A river reborn

Cleveland may still be waiting for that next sports championship, but at least some things are looking up. Today is the 40th anniversary of the Cuyahoga River fire that sparked (sorry, bad pun, I know) the “Mistake on the Lake” moniker that residents (including myself) had to endure for so long.

Today, the Cuyahoga is home to more than 60 species of fish, said Jim White, executive director of the Cuyahoga River Community Planning Organization, a nonprofit group that coordinates cleanup efforts. Beavers, blue herons and bald eagles nest along the river’s banks. Long sections of the Cuyahoga are clean enough that they no longer require aggressive monitoring, regulators said.

“We’re very impressed with the progress made in the Cuyahoga,” said John Perrecone, a manager of Great Lakes programs for the E.P.A.

Thanks for the link, mom!

Two thumbs up for “Up”

Today on Father’s Day we went and saw the latest Disney Pixar movie, “Up.” It’s an amazing stat: every one of Pixar’s movies have been consecutive hits. “Up” is the 10th and it keeps the streak going.

From a technical standpoint, once again the animation quality is incredible. Clouds, fire, sweeping vistas, the physics in a group of balloons … you’ll forget you’re watching something generated on a computer. And the 3D? It was cool … it wasn’t full of “in your face, try to make you jump” 3D effects, just added depth to these amazingly beautiful scenes. The entire movie wasn’t in 3D either (as my daughter attested to because some scenes “weren’t blurry” when she took her glasses off … I confirmed this myself) but wearing the glasses the whole time wasn’t really distracting at all.

What about the story? Let’s just say that the first 10 minutes is pretty powerful, emotional storytelling (moreso even than the first half of “Wall-E“). You might find yourself tearing up a bit …

Some random thoughts:

  • this is the first time I can recall seeing blood (twice, no less!) in a Pixar film
  • John Ratzenberger keeps his streak alive
  • squirrel!
  • caught a few Star Wars references
  • why does every young woman in a Pixar film (i.e., Ellie)  look like Elastigirl?
  • I want a few of those dog collars for my own pups 🙂

Strange cloud-related side note: one of the previews shown was for “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,” the Pixar short before the film was “Partly Cloudy” and then the film itself had a lot of clouds in it. Coincidences?