WIJFR: Salamandastron

As the inhabitants of Redwall relax in the haze of the long, hot summer, they are unaware that the neighboring stronghold of Salamandastron lies besieged by the evil weasel army of Ferhago the Assassin. Nor do they realize that Mara, beloved daughter of Urthstripe, Badger Lord of the Fire Mountain, is in terrible danger. But when a lightning bolt uncovers the sword of Martin the Warrior, young Samkin embarks on adventure that leads him to Mara, and their lives become inextricably entwined.

Book 5 of Brian Jacques’ Redwall series is “Salamandastron.” As before, my daughter and I started reading this together, but only got a few chapters in before she decided to go on without me, so once again I ended up reading this one on my own after she finished.

Despite following the now-familiar formulaic approach (which I detailed in my previous Redwall-related post), “Salamandastron” was a quick and fun read. If I had to pick, the badgers would be my favorite characters in the Redwall mythos, and there are quite a few of them in this book. Here’s the breakdown:

  • Ferhago the Assassin and his son Klitch, along with the horde of Corpsemakers are beseiging the mountain stronghold of the badger lord Urthstripe. Mara, a young orphan badger under the care of Urthstripe, runs away with Pikkle (a hare).
  • all is peaceful at Redwall as they prepare for their seasonal Nameday celebration until the sword of Martin the Warrior is stolen by two weasels; they are pursued by Samkin (a squirrel) and Arula (a mole maid).
  • shortly after they leave Redwall, an outbreak of Dryditch Fever spreads through the Abbey; Thrugg (an otter) and Dumble (a baby mouse) strike out north seeking the Icetor flowers, the only known cure for the disease.

Some more familiar groups make an appearance, like the guerilla shrews (another personal favorite), along with some new characters, like the hawks and eagles of the North (with their highland accents). Jacques does a nice job of establishing the three storylines and then weaving them together, tying the whole thing up in a neat package by the final chapters.

Chronologically, this book comes after “Mariel of Redwall” but before “Redwall.” Just like before, my daughter enjoyed being able to tie some of the characters and plotlines of “Salamandastron” into the other books. I’m amazed by her retention of characters, events, and details … she remembers the little things much better than I do. That could be because she is constantly re-reading these books. I told her that once we read all of the books (which could take a while, I think there are over 20!), she should re-read them in chronological order. 🙂

Next up: “Martin the Warrior.”

Netflix on TiVo

Announced in the current issue of the TiVo newsletter, Netflix integration will be available on the Series3 and THD boxes next month! If you’re a Netflix subscriber, you’ll be able to “instantly” stream movies from Netflix to your TiVo … for free.

I was a Netflix subscriber back in 1999 when I was still a traveling consultant. I would take the DVDs on the road with me to watch on my laptop and drop them in the mail as I finished each one. In those early days, you could go into your account on the Netflix web site and mark the movie as “I’ve mailed it back” and they would immediately ship the next one in your queue. That way when I got back home on Friday, a new set of DVDs would be waiting for me for my trip the next week. Once they switched to the “your next DVD doesn’t ship until we receive one back”-model, the service became less useful as there could be a week when I had no discs to take with me because they didn’t arrive by Saturday.

Once I switched jobs and stopped travelling, I just didn’t have the time to watch all of those movies, so I ended up cancelling my subscription and went back to the traditional Blockbuster rental method. Once Amazon Unbox (now called Amazon Video on Demand) appeared on TiVo, I started using that for the occasional movie rental. With Netflix coming to TiVo in December, though, I might have to consider re-subscribing.

Dropo is back!

Just in time for the holidays!

What timing … just last week I posted about the 20th anniversary of “Mystery Science Theater 3000” and the (former) Best Brains’ current endeavor, “Cinematic Titanic.”

What should I find in my inbox this morning? An e-mail from CT announcing the release of “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians,” a true holiday classic that includes a young Pia Zadora. Fellow MSTies will recall that the gang already riffed this particular “film” (if it deserves to be called that) back in 1991 (season 3, episode 21), the episode that gave us “A Patrick Swayze Christmas,” Tom Servo’s snow globe head, and introduced us to Dropo (“Oh, Dropo!”).

I can’t wait to purchase and download this latest incarnation … I’m sure it’s going to be fantastic.

Hooray for Santy Claus! (cha cha cha)

Bags on WiiWare – Released

Originally announced back in May, Target Toss Pro: Bags has finally been released on WiiWare!

I purchased it tonight for 700 Wii Points ($7) and gave it a quick run through. My first impression: wow, I suck. 🙂 I got a 4 in my first game, and a 7 in my second. I actually got one to slide into the hole for three points, but then later knocked a bag off the platform and lost a point. Most of the time I missed the box altogether … guess I need more practice.

You use the Wii remote similar to bowling in Wii Sports: hold down the A and B buttons, then swing your arm back and then forward, as if you were tossing the bean bag. Tilting the remote left and right controls the aim, and you can change the angle and style of throw as well (slide, bounce, flop). I’ve never played the coin-op, trackball version, so I can’t comment on how the original has been translated to WiiWare. I can see this being a cool party game as it supports up to 16 players!

Oh, and if I didn’t mention it, my little sister’s name is in the credits. 😉 She also designed the game’s web site.

An evening with TSO

For my birthday last month, my younger siblings got me tickets to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert here in Tampa tonight.

If you listen to any Christmas radio, you’ve probably heard TSO standards like “Christmas Eve/Sarajevo” or “Wizards in Winter.” In fact, until tonight those were the only two songs by the group I had on my iPod. If you haven’t heard, or heard of, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, think Christmas music in the rock-opera style and you should have a good idea of what TSO is all about.

Not only was the music and singing fantastic, the light show and pyrotechnics were amazing. It was also cool to see the wide range of people at the show: couples, families, and folks of all ages. In fact, the two guys sitting next to me, drinking some beers and “woo!”ing during all the good parts looked like they belonged at the hockey game instead of a concert, but were having a great time like everyone else. You never would have pegged them as TSO fans if you ran into them on the street.

Overall, it was a cool experience and a nice way to start the upcoming holiday season. Time to hit up the Amazon MP3 store for some more tracks for the Christmas playlist!

Galleon 2.5.4 is out

John has released Galleon 2.5.4. Here’s what’s new, from the release notes:

  • Fix ToGo looping bug on null recording date (1811137)
  • Added user-selectable range for local radar image (100, 300, 600 miles) in Weather app
  • auto-subdirectory publishing for GoBack, avoids the need to do it yourself and also avoids bugs in TiVo folder navigation in older TiVo service releases (Series 3 and HD should be OK without this). (Probably needs some work to handle DOS shortcuts; should be OK on UNIX and OS X.)
  • XML parsing of recording meta-data for non-Galleon-created video files in GoBack areas. e.g. if you post-process .TiVo files into .mpg, just put the XML output containing the show details, in the same format as it comes from the TiVo, into a .xml file with the same prefix. If you use tivodecode to unwrap .TiVo files, the metadata are in the -02-0002.xml file generated with the -D (dump-metadata) option.
  • Enabled store-by-show handling in GoBack server (available on GoBack preferences pane).
  • Fix for linux Makefile (1815568) and init script for distro independence

The items in bold are things I’ve personally contributed to this release, like the user-selectable radar range.

What do you think, sirs?

I found this New York Times article via slashdot … “Mystery Science Theater 3000” turns 20 this month!

MST3k premiered on Thanksgiving Day 1988 on KTMA in Minnesota. It was eventually picked up by Comedy Central where I discovered it as a sophomore in college in 1992 (back when Jon Stewart was still on “Short Attention Span Theater“). I remember having a group of friends come down to visit one weekend for KingCon that summer and telling them “guys, you have to see this show.” We were hooked (and their wives probably still hate me for introducing them to it).

MST3k was a Saturday night staple during my college years:

  • I recall setting up the VCR to record the Turkey Day marathons and asking my roommate who was staying at school over break to change the tapes every 6 hours (man, TiVo would have made that soooo much easier!).
  • I remember watching Joel’s last episode, and Mike’s first one.
  • I would occasionally post in alt.tv.mst3k (that’s on Usenet for you younger folks ;-)).
  • I remember worrying when Comedy Central dropped the show (but then SciFi picked it up).
  • I wrote an alternate version of the lyrics to the opening theme (who hadn’t, back then?).

And it’s still a (small) part of my life today:

The original Brains now run “Cinematic Titanic.” I’ve purchased, downloaded, and watched the first two episodes and they are really great … reminds me of old times with friends on Saturday nights.

Keep circulating those tapes …

Alas, poor Firewire, we hardly knew ye

It seems like just yesterday (ok, last decade!) when I got my first digital video camera and then purchased a Firewire card for my PC so I could download and edit my home movies. Since then I’ve owned a multitude of laptops and PCs with IEE 1394 built in. It was aimed primarily for high-speed data transfer situations, like digital video and hard drives … and it was king for a little bit, until USB 2.0 came out.

It’s sad, though not surprising, that Firewire’s creator, Apple, seems to have given up on the technology, admitting that USB 2.0 won the “war” for the low-end, high-speed connectivity standard. The latest round of MacBooks don’t have Firewire ports (although the higher-end MacBook Pro still includes an FW800 jack). When announced, this lack of Firewire caused quite a tizzy in the Mac community. Steve Jobs’ response: deal with it: he simply pointed out that most HD camcorders shipping today include a USB 2.0 port.

When I was shopping for a new PC last month, I was originally looking for a machine with Firewire since my current PC had it, used in conjunction with my Panasonic PV-GS250. Then the MacBook announcement and the subsequent flurry of coverage about Firewire missing happened. That prompted me to double-check my camcorder and sure enough, it had USB 2.0 connectivity (and I bought it 3 years ago this month). So I dropped the Firewire requirement from my new PC and now I’m Firewire free (not to mention PS/2, serial, and parallel port free too). Ah, legacy connections …