I’m doing a little research into dual-booting Ubuntu. Fear not, my Redmond overlords: I don’t plan on switching from Windows as my primary platform. At this point, I’m mostly motivated out of curiosity and the desire to do a little fiddling. I think I’ll start with the Live CD, which will let me experiment with the OS without having to potentially worry about hosing my system.
Even though I have to wait until next month for my complete fix of Battlestar Galactica goodness, the webisodes currently being posted on SciFi.com are tiding me over nicely. I’m pleasantly surprised with the quality of these three-minute clips. Aside from featuring many of the series’ main players, the storyline of the nascent human resistance on New Caprica is compelling and well-written. It bears strong resemblance to noi-ish films about the resistance movement against the Nazis. I think that’s why I’m such a fan of BSG–with it’s femmes fatales, themes of moral uncertainty, and shadowy set design, it’s noir in space.
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I’ve been without my TiVo for the past week because I sent it off to the friendly people at WeaKnees to have a second hard drive installed. In the few times that I have turned on the television, I’ve noticed a curious phenomenon. Every ten to fifteen minutes, the program I’m watching will be interrupted by these thirty-seconds short films in which the performers seem oddly enthusiastic about a particular brand of potato chips or bathroom cleanser. They’re actually quite annoying. Perhaps one of you out there would be so kind as to explain the concept to me.
I depend on Target to keep me in hair gel and Pringles and I can’t even begin to calculate the amount of money I’ve spent in their stores over the years. But I’m dismayed to read that Target’s website is still inaccessible to users with visual impairments. I seem to recall commenting on this case previously and I can’t understand why Target simply won’t promise to make its website accessible and spare itself a lot of bad publicity. But what this case really illustrates is that perhaps disability advocates should–once the political climate is a little more friendly–push for an amendment to Title III of the ADA to explicitly cover websites that receive a certain threshold of traffic. Granted, crafting that amendment might be tricky, but it might be the only way to force corporate stonewallers like Target to see the light regarding web accessibility.
Aside from the AG race, there weren’t any real surprises in yesterday’s state primary races. Congratulations to Keith Ellison for beating out the other DFL contenders for the 5th District Congressional seat. The smear attacks directed against him didn’t do any significant damage and he ran a strong, effective grassroots campaign. I’m proud to count myself among his financial contributors. I’m also hopeful that Ellison’s name on the ballot will increase voter turnout in the general election, which will be critical in our efforts to defeat Pawlenty.
As for the DFL candidates for Attorney General, I was disappointed that Steve Kelley came out on the losing end. The guy just can’t get a break this year. But I have no doubt that Lori Swanson will make a fine advocate for the people of Minnesota.
Game on.
Off to see The Illusionist with my brother. More soon.
Amazon and Apple are both unveiling downloadable movie services. Amazon already launched its Unbox service last week and Apple is expected to follow suit tomorrow. I’ve already made use of iTunes’ television offerings and I’m expecting that the movie store will be equally user-friendly. I’m less eager to try Amazon’s service after reading about its clunky interface and buggy software. And unless I can burn movies to DVD, I doubt I’ll make much use of either option. Crowding around the computer with friends to watch a movie doesn’t sound particularly appealing to me, so I think I’ll stick with my Netflix subscription and my personal DVD library. Besides, if I’m not careful, I might start to grow a root system while sitting here at my desk.
My friend and colleague John Tschida had an op-ed piece appear in yesterday’s Strib expounding on the the oft-repeated maxim from Disability Advocacy 101: living with a disability is not an inherently tragic experience. What I like most about John’s piece is his unflinching honesty in recognizing the difficulties and frustrations in learning to exist with a disability. He also doesn’t condemn those individuals who choose not to pursue such an existence and have critical life supports withdrawn.
I’m still not sure most people really get it when I explain that my quality of life is pretty good. I sometimes think it’s like trying to describe the flavor of some exotic dish; you can say it tastes like chicken, but that doesn’t really give the other person a clear idea of what you’re describing unless they experience it themselves.
Blogging may be light over the next couple days because my brother will be dropping by. I haven’t seen him since I was in Berlin last year and we’re going to do a little catching up before he goes off to California and his ivory tower.
I had the pleasure of seeing Zero 7 put on a spectacular show last night at the Fine Line. Zero 7 is best known for the icy-cool vocal stylings of frontwoman Sia, but the band’s talent doesn’t end there. They performed some hard-charging instrumental pieces with heavy bass lines that had the crowd jumping. Sia has a charming, playful stage presence and I couldn’t help but smile as she shimmied and danced in between her magnificent renditions of songs like “Destiny” and “Throwing It All Away”. Guest musician Jose Gonzales also provided his mellow voice to a few numbers. Easily one of the best concerts that I’ve seen this year.
Happy fortieth anniversary to Star Trek. Sure, it’s featured bad acting, cheap special effects, hackneyed scripts, and the franchise barely survived Rick Berman’s disastrous creative tenure. But then there are episodes like City on the Edge of Forever and The Inner Light; storytelling gems that kindled my lifelong love affair with science fiction. When I my brother and I were kids, we actually attended a summer class at the local university where we watched episodes of the original series and discussed their themes and plot devices. We even got a write-up in the local paper. Somewhere in the archives of the Green Bay Press-Gazette, there’s a picture of a rather geeky-looking me sitting with a bunch of other geeky-looking adolescents. This was soon after I was trached and I was still working through some feelings of resentment about being on a ventilator. But I always looked forward to that class and I think Trek’s implication that the future might be kind of cool resonated with me at the time.
Thanks, Star Trek, for helping me realize that it was okay to let my geek flag fly.