Added a Terabyte of Storage

Yes, there seems to be no end to my storage needs. First there was a 160GB drive. Then a second 160GB drive. Then I had to add a 300GB external drive. And finally even that filled up. So I just picked up a pair of 500GB drives and swapped them in for the 160s. So Gabrielle, my main desktop (Mac G5), now has 1.3 Terabytes of disk space. Hopefully that will last a little while.

Meanwhile, the two 160GB drives had nowhere to live, so I bought a few cheap parts and built myself a new Linux desktop named Joxer. I had a tough time deciding how to configure him, but I finally settled on Kubuntu 7.04 for the OS. I'm really liking the whole Ubuntu family of products. It's like the best of Debian, wrapped up and delivered fresh to your door every six months!

FINALLY published "Film School in a Box for $25"

After years of threatening and a week of editing and composing (yes, it's sad), I finally published Film School in a Box for $25, a "review" of the DVD box set of the "Mexico" trilogy by Robert Rodriguez. He is my hero when it comes to art and creativity.

Got distracted by my day job

I've had my head so deep into my day job lately that I haven't done much in the way of personal stuff. Last week I added a quick post to Control-Escape about CSS Layouts with YUI Grids. It's not very detailed, but it doesn't really have to be, the documentation provided by Yahoo is plenty good. This week all I managed to do was tweak a couple of links and fix an environment bug that wasn't detecting Windows clients correctly. Just the same, page views look to be up about 20% over last month, and revenues are following. There's a possibility that the site will actually pay for its own hosting this month, an historical first.

I didn't post anything at Media Brothers this week. Mikey took up my slack with a nice review of Band of Brothers. I've got a few ideas floating around, but I can't seem to organize any of them into a coherent article.

Meanwhile, the post office can't seem to keep my Netflix queue turning over. I've been reduced to actually reading things on paper. If I ever finish one, I'll put a review on Media Brothers.

Had a multi-post week

Just couldn't stop myself this past week. I've been pouring content onto Media Brothers. I made a post about the AppleTV that The Steve announced at Macworld Expo. That's been getting some traffic from del.icio.us. Then I wrote a review of Ladyhawke, for no particular reason. Then I finally got inspired to drop a post about network neutrality. And according to FeedBurner, Media Brothers actually has some subscribers now too!

And yet, I still have not had time to write about my cataloging project, nor to write those articles for Control-Escape that I keep putting off. I don't get how so many "bloggers" have time to write ten posts a day. I really don't.

Beat the Market - Sort of

I just did the math on my meager 401k investments to see how I did in 2006. The answer: not bad, and better than 2005 by a lot. My annual return on capital came in at 15.97%, a very respectable return. The Nasdaq 100 gained only 6.93%. The S&P 500 came in at 15.85%, so I just squeaked past it. But the Dow Jones Industrial Average whupped me at 18.91% return.

On the other hand, if you count 401k company matching funds as gains rather than contributions, that would give me a return on investment of 38.75%. Now that's what I call a return! And since contributions are made with pre-tax dollars, only about two-thirds of the investment is mine, the rest is a loan from Uncle Sam. He'll get his in the end, though. He always does.

My play-money portfolio actually dropped a bit this year (Texas Instruments, you big slacker!), but has a 50% return over two years, so I'm not complaining. I figure it picks back up this year.

If only that decimal place were moved to the right a couple of digits, I'd be rolling in money. Oh well. Time compounds all accounts.

Reviewed Superman II - the Richard Donner cut

Just posted my review of Superman II - the Richard Donner cut, a new DVD release that restores the original vision of the creators. Now if only something could be done about Superman 3. Bleh.

Got sore from doing 10 push-ups

Boy, am I ever out of shape. I hate making New Year's Resolutions, but I really need to make the coming year about getting myself healthier. I don't want to live forever, but I don't want to get old before my time, either. Got to lay off the fast food and get off my duff occasionally. I used to love doing Yoga, what happened to that? Haven't done any all year.

Started Documenting the Resurrection

Finally started my series of articles on Resurrecting a Dead Site over at the Webmaster's Journal on Control-Escape, with an article on web analytics. I hope to follow this up with articles on CSS layout, server-side includes, Adsense, and search. Possibly one on blogging, too, but I am hardly an expert at that.

Composed the article while re-watching Xena Warrior Princess - Season Three on DVD. (Have I ever mentioned that all my computers are named for characters from Xena?) I love these languid, low-pressure days in front of my Mac! Alas, tomorrow it is back to work at the day job.

Excavated Superman Returns Review

I dug up my Netflix review of Superman Returns that I wrote a couple of weeks ago and posted it at Media Brothers. It was harder than it should have been to track it down. From now on all my reviews go to Media Brothers first.

Moved the Media Brothers blog

Just relocated the Media Brothers blog to blogger. I canned the old design based on the "Connections" theme from Vanilla Mist, which pains me because I love that look. But I don't have that much time to work on my blogs as it is, I don't want to spend half of it dinking with HTML trying to make Blogger play nice with my custom template. So I kissed it goodbye and picked one of the default Blogger themes.

I cross-posted my Eragon review to get the new Media Brothers bootstrapped. I'll try not to make that a habit. The review really belonged on Media Brothers anyway, but I was in transition and didn't want to wait, impatience being one of the cardinal virtues.

Saw HD Trailer for "300", drooled

I caught the latest HD trailer for the movie 300.

Based on the epic graphic novel by Frank Miller, 300 is a ferocious retelling of the ancient Battle of Thermopylae in which King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) and 300 Spartans fought to the death against Xerxes and his massive Persian army. Facing insurmountable odds, their valor and sacrifice inspire all of Greece to unite.

I love Frank Miller's work, both in graphic novels and in movies. If the trailers are any indication, this is going to be one awesome action flick. A friend of mine saw an early preview at Butt-numb-a-thon and tells me I am not wrong. Lucky bugger. The rest of us have to wait until March.

Guess I should start saving now for the movie tickets. Prices are out of control. They charge three bucks to sneak in for free now. They better show this one on a digital screen, because I'll flip if the projection is bad.

300 has something in common with Frank Miller's Sin City besides Frank Miller himself. Most of the sets are digitally generated. This heavy use of digital sets is becoming quite popular for movies that are going for a certain stylized look, and such a look is definitely appropriate to Miller's work. I hope we see more like this in the near future.

Wasted Endless Hours Playing Pangea Arcade

Spent most of the day Sunday playing Pangea Arcade, which I picked up via Mac Heist. My fingers are sore from blasting asteroids.