March 2003 Archives

Quite some time ago I wrote a letter to the Fox television coporation asking about rights to use a large volume of simpsons quotes in a fan driven website. It was an interesting idea (though nearly impossible to implement as it turns out) so I figured I'd give it a go and ask for legal permission. Well I got a letter today from a legal firm in california that represents Matt Groening saying that while they appreciate fan support they cannot authorize me to use/publish massive amounts of simpsons quotes. They were actually pretty nice about it, said they understood the intended use, noted it wouldn't be covered by fair use and that some form of license would be required however there was no way I could be granted a license because so many people hold rights to various portions of the simpsons it would impossible to get sign off from all of them. Not nearly the rabid pack of lawyers corporate firms are always made out to be :)

For those that don't know, the idea... well actually it's more of a thesis. Basically it states that any definable moment in life can be related back to a simpsons quote or scene. Sort of a 1-degree of separation premise. You know, you eat something nasty -> "It tastes like burning". You're trapped on a boat and don't wish to be there -> the scene where Bart is being hunted by sideshow bob and is running back and forth on the house boat. Stuff like that.

So the list of emails I've gotten that come from people I don't know (not counting spam).

• Rob from cockeyed.com.
• Interest in the WOPR case.
• Helpful information about my Zinsco brand circuit breaker panel.
• John from badmouth.net.
• Interest in Jeni's fake vampire teeth.
• and now from Matt Groening's lawyers.

I like lists :)

I can't really write a whole lot about this, you really just have to watch it. Horrible, but not about the war, so at least it's distracting. Windows Media format only though (sorry, no time to convert) but that should play fine on Macs.
Cat.wmv
After you watch it a few times you begin to suspect it's suspect *chuckle* but it's still worth the download.

I heard from a friend who worked at Disney a few years back that people in costumes are never allowed to break character. Ever. If their about to pass out from heat exhaustion and taking their giant foam head off would save them they just have to roll their eyes and try to not swallow their tounge. Some (all?) of them though appear to take great pride in this. Bullet point list of how I got on this topic.

1. Search for "Gummi Bears" on google's image search (no real reason).
2. See pictures of Gummi Bears the Cartoon.
3. Search for "Darkwing Duck" - why not, it's sort of related.
4. Be slightly disturbed by one guy's obsession with female disney characters.
5. stumble across this page: http://www.davis-reno.com/characters.htm

This guy collects signatures from disney characters - or at least the people in costume at the disney parks. A little odd I thought but I looked at some of the signatures and was duely impressed by the level to which these people play their characters. Bashful signed his sheet in a tiny little scrawl. Beast used big block letters. Dopey and Hook each had trouble writing clearly though for different reasons, while Darkwing (how I found it) used very superhero-esque stylized D's in his signature. It was just kind of cool that these guys would put that amount of effort into playing their part. I don't know that I would.

Anyway.

Before there was Triple X,

Before there was The Fast and the Furious,

There was Vin Diesel: Breakdance Instructor!

Vin Diesel Breakdancing 1(windows media)
Vin Diesel Breakdancing 2(windows media)

I found these on Badmouth.net which in turn found them somewhere random on the net. I'm not entirely certain what badmouth.net is about, I would have suspected movies from the "about" page, but the linked stories on the right (at time of posting) were a Fox News screwup where the anchor says "blowjob", some guy burning a plastic Garfield toy, Spock and Hobbits and the like.

Whatever, a good place to waste some time :)

We had the house we're looking to buy inspected the other day, I got an electronic copy of the inspection report and read over it last night. There are a couple of things in it that will should to be fixed and we're trying to get the seller to pay for some of them. Here's my favorite:

19. Electrical Service, Over Current Devices
The electrical panel is a Zinsco brand panel. Reports of failure with this equipment have been reported. Failure included breakers failing to trip at the stated ratings, breakers that exploded, and breakers that still have power when turned to the "off" position. These also have poor breaker connections to bus bars, and some of these panels have insufficient wire bending space and insufficient gutter space. There may also be incompatible metals between the bus bars and the breakers which may lead to deterioration over time. Listed replacement breakers for these panels are available but are very expensive. Many electricians advise the immediate replacement of Zinsco panels. Consulting a licensed, qualified electrical expert on this matter is recommended as replacement of the panel should be considered for preventive safety considerations.
FPE/Zinsco Panels

So Mike was correct when he said he'd never heard of "Zinsco" and that it looked a little "odd". Needless to say, even if they won't pay for that one we will be replacing the panel before we move in :)

One of my roommates broke up with his girlfriend over email recently. He was immensly proud of his letter so shared it with us, and so now it's shared with the world :) Miles (he was proud enough to not want to hide his name) says if you know him this isn't unusual and if you know her you know she deserved worse. Anyway, for your reading pleasure, how to tell someone you don't like them.

Hey, sorry, I haven't had time. There was a list of things I was going to say. Things that have been running through my mind for quite some time now. I was trying to come up with some way to say it all. But upon reflection I thought better of. You don't listen to people, and you're not going to start now.

It's been fun. I don't need to discuss anything with you. There's little if anything that you could say to make me feel better about how you've treated me. I've felt like the last thing on you're list of priorities, if I was there at all. I don't blame you, you're busy, and you don't even make friends a priority. Still, it's a pity how well you treat those around you.

I understand only too well why you'd lose interest. My opening can be good, but my midgame falls to pieces. I also definitely misread you. I saw a glimmer of potential in you as a person, even ignoring every part of me that told me otherwise. Sadly, I was wrong. It was foolish to believe that someone who likes to think that people are drawn to her for positive reasons would ever give time to someone who actually was. I only wish I could have told you what I saw when I looked at you. I could see through the facades, the foolish behavior, and ridiculous manner. I really thought I could learn from you and you could show me life from a different perspective.

So I say goodbye. And I hope you find what you're looking for.

Miles

And for the record, this was her response.

I have to say this is the most insulting email I've ever gotten.

Succinct.

This was to be a two for one post, but sadly my email system is slow/down now so I can't get at something I wanted to post so it's just a one for one post :) What was to be posted will have to wait a day or so.

Anyway... I, well this site, crossed a new threshold of geekdom today, I got my first random email about the site from someone I don't know personally. It was cool because 1) someone took the time to write and 2) it means more than just my immediate friends and family read this stuff.

The author - happy to share his name or link if he wants to send one again - wanted to know the status of the WOPR case after having stumbled across my site from a random Google for Wargames. Since I haven't talked about it in a while, a quick status update:

The control circuitry for the lights is done, save for the two parts I burned out before realizing it isn't wise to run 12 volts through something meant to handle 0.7 - I are an elektrical engineer :). I have NOT, however, taken the time to wire up all 700 odd red and orange LEDs that would comprise the WOPR light banks. That's really the easy part of this project though, the hard part is the case.

I had originally planned on carving the shape out of modeling foam, coating it in fiberglass and then disolving the foam out of the fiberglass shell with acetone or something. I'd seen this done before for fiberglass model airplane bodies so I figured it would work well. The only problem is that the WOPR case is a hard shape to carve - especially when I don't know what the heck I'm doing :) A few days ago, however, my boss came to me with a much better approach...

He suggested getting a big block of earthen clay - it's pretty cheap and I could always just pack it around an old shoe box or something so I wouldn't need quite so much. The clay would be much easier to mold (and much more forgiving of mistakes) into the right shape. I can then take a Plaster of Paris negative of the two halves of the case and then form two fiberglass positives out of that. Alternatively I can use the Plaster mould to make foam positive using just spray in foam and go my original route. Either way it's better because I'll have the plaster castings left over should I ever want to make another case AND it's a lot easier to make the initial positive.

So why haven't I done any of this? 4 days of physical training a week AND looking for a house during the week, and.. well.. fun on the weekends, doesn't leave me a lot of time to work on it. I still have my sketches of the case and dimensions (they survived the last move) so the project isn't dead, just on hold.

So there you go, hope that's all the info you could ever want. Should any other random emailers like to say hello, just send mail to web(at)arr-the-kraken(dot)com. Replace the things in parentheses with their obvious symbolic counterparts - I can't make it too easy for spam address harvesters to get my contact info :)

Cheers.