Fuck that shit all day long. Time for some geek.

I picked up this skin from Etsy for the big price of ten dollah. TEN WHOLE DOLLAH.

Fuck yeah it’s bad ass.

Bryci put it on my laptop today while I was doing some videos, her way of showing she loves me. (yes, I know I’m lucky, thanks)

In 2013/2014 when the Justice League movie comes out, it had better be fucking good. If I was Warner Brothers, I’d wave a big ass check in front of Nolan to do it.

Nolan or GTFO.

Also, I got new shades today. They seem to make me appear a little more tanned.

I can see the future though, so that’s cool.

I’m amazed at how fast laptops have become. To put things in perspective, in 2009 I bought a Mac Pro, loaded it with ram and it became my every day system for video editing, photoshopping, what have you. Geekbench wise, it registered a 11178 for the score. That’s pretty quick, for 2009.

Fast forward to right now.. I just changed out the ram on my laptop as I said. It’s the current MacBook Pro, 15”, 2.0 GHz. yes there are faster models but I don’t need the faster to be honest, this has a quad processor i7 which is more then quick enough for me. The speed between this and a 2.6 for example, barely noticeable and you pay a ton more. If you’re going to upgrade, upgrade your hard drive to SSD (check) and then your ram (check).

I ran Geekbench to see where it’s at.. 9749! Holy shit. This is a LAPTOP and it’s almost as fast as a dual xeon processor, 8 core Mac Pro (from 2008 mind you, but still).

Shit is getting fast! This will make it so much easier to be on the road and still be able to move Bella to the next level.

Yes, this blog was somewhat pointless.. but I was surprised how quick the score was. Thus, I blogged it. Hey, fuck you. it’s my blog. :p

It’s on the wall behind my desk, which is just cool as hell for me. I love this painting, it’s so peaceful. Hopefully it teaches me some basic things, like how to be nice. Some will see me having a huge picture of Buddha on my wall as me being a hypocrite. I am not a man of the cloth in that I don’t follow your god, his god, her god. Yet, I have a religious symbol on my wall, no different then a cross.

Well, I disagree in that I don’t slant this way or that way. I find myself liking the simple way of life that Buddhism seems to envelope though. Be kind to others, have respect for the earth, don’t be an asshole.. you know, the basics. Alright, the asshole thing was paraphrasing. Point being, you won’t find me going door to door trying to convert anyone. You won’t find me getting up early on Sunday so I can look down my nose on those not in my belief system. You also won’t seem me telling anyone they’re going to hell. Who am I to say these things?

So you do what’s right for you, I’ll do what’s right for me. Deal?

I saw a poster with things said by Dalai Lama that I thought was pretty cool, but I’m wagering some will think it’s hippy shit. I don’t know, it’s weird when you see so many people in such a rat race with others around them. Who drives the nicer car, who has the bigger house, who has the best this or that. Why bother? Why does any of it matter? I need a beautiful new Mercedes so others will see my huge shiny cock? Really?

pass.

When you’re laying on your death bed, will you look back on your successes or your failures? Myself, I’ll look back on my regrets, things I didn’t get quite right. I won’t care if I owned this or drove that.. but that’s me. How about you?

Be the change or I’ll send this cat to kick your ass.

ps.

also, don’t go upstairs, pretty much ever again. They’re waiiiiting…..

My Mom is going to shit apples on this one.

Read the article here..

No, I had something else to see him about. In 2004 I had an emergency appendectomy so I have a stomach scar that is around 8 inches long.. from my belly button to my nether regions. Not to get into the too much information category but fuck it, we’re all friends, right? If this offends you or makes you feel sad pants, click the X in the corner. Be gone with you.

Alright, still here? Coo… James’ Anatomy time.

So I have this awesome scar. I tell people I was attacked by a shark. What’s fucked… some people believe it.

??????

Do they know what a shark looks like? Yeah Skippy, it’s a single row of teeth. Fumb duck. I love smart people.

The scar never bothered me really, but it’s larger then normal, they didn’t sew me up when done removing my appendix because of the onslaught of poison in my system. So every two hours, a nurse would come in and remove poison over and over. It was gross, and yes, I have photos to back it up.

So moving to now.. I’ve always wanted to in and have the Doc cut out the old, make the scar smaller. So I go in, and he tells me that I have a problem with my fascia as well. The Fascia is tissue that helps muscles do their gig. It is all over your abs, your abdominal region etc. Mine, has become pushed out about 75-80% further then it should be. So all this time I figured I needed to lay off the Pizza… turns out Doc thinks I’m fit as a fiddle, but my fascia needs to be altered. He says he can open me up to do the scar, and while in there, fix the fascia and I loose about 3 inches off my stomach.

White area is the fascia (in the middle area of the pic)

I’m not fat by any means, but yeah, I was thinking I was getting chunky. Doc told me I could stand to lose 5 pounds, 10 if I wanted over the next 10 years to remain healthy but the stomach isn’t fat, it’s the fascia being screwed from the way the last surgeon did their work when my appendix went kaboom. That guy went in fast and furious and fucked up my shit inside basically.

Ah well, I’m alive.

So..on the way home, I stop at the mail box and oh look what came!

Yeah yeah, I bought the trilogy. Poor Bryci.. she loved the movies but not so sure she’ll sit through a Transformer Sunday. We’ll have to see what I can do to get some brownie points. Maybe… make her brownies!!

Then to top the day off, I bought a new book today. Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson. The book hits shelves on Monday of next week but you can buy the electronic version now on Kindle or iBooks.

Amazon link — click here  I would link the iBooks version but truth be told, Kindle is where it’s at when you’re reading ebooks.

I am only a few pages into this book but it’s a great read so far. Apparently nothing was off limits. So this is a tell all basically. Haters gonna hate, fuck em.

Damn it feels good to be a gangsta

This means I now have iCloud and a shit ton of other new goodies for the OS. It’s kind of cool when you think about it. When Windows updates their software in the past, what do they do? They fix bugs, they don’t add new features. Yes, Apple fixes bugs too, all software has it’s glitches but show me where windows is leading the way in, well, any area?

Feel free to get your Appel hate on, trust me, I was a hardcore Windows geek for most of my life. I used to build my own boxes from ground up, I loved my win boxes. I hated most windows software because let’s face it, having to install codecs, drivers, windows ‘help’ not finding solutions for things etc… it gets old.

Bryci was on OS-X and loving it, she kept telling me to suck it the fuck up and switch. I finally listened and holy shit. See, OS-X is based on UNIX, just like most of the sites online… well, the servers that is. It’s rock solid. It’s not OHAI BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH! or let’s install codecs, drivers, this is not compatible etc. When i buy something for my Mac, I plug it in and it works. First try. No extra software, no extra anything. I have no idea how they do it, but it works.

I hate Apple commercials. I hate the pretentious bullshit aroma that seems to follow Apple users, but jebus… after using the products for awhile, I get it. I really understand why. Their software works, their hardware works, it just works. Oh sure, you’ll tell me it’s over priced and you can build my box for cheaper etc. Some apple computers are more expensive then the Windows alternatives but as the saying goes.. you get what you pay for. I have bought the $600 – $1000 windows laptop. Works great usually.. at first anyway, then after a year, it’s slow as piss. Why? I have up to date NOD32 for virus protection (best in the biz) as well as malware detection software. There is nothing that shouldn’t be on my laptop, on my laptop… yet, it’s slow. Odd.

Then I look over at the Mac laptop and oh look, Apple has updated the software with improvements to keep it kicking ass.

Look, I know I sound like a fanboy, I do. I’d hate me too in your shoes but jesus, ask yourself WHY so many people switch to Apple and never come back. Did we all drink the kool aid? Maybe, just maybe there is actually a reason we did this? Maybe the OS is actually a great OS? Imagine wanting to run a program, and instead of having to go start… programs… find program…. you could just click one thing. Weird, but true.

The hardest thing for me in leaving Windows and going to Mac? Unlearning Windows. I was looking for things to be harder, so it wasn’t making sense. When i started to view it like my Mom might, it made sense quick. Shit is where you’d expect it to be. It works, first try, every time.

I have a Windows box sitting beside my Apple box. I use it sometimes, and I do like Windows 7. I think it’s a great OS to be honest, easily in the same conversation as OS-X’s Snow Leopard or Lion. I don’t think it’s better, but I think it’s great. I’m not a Windows hater, I just love how freaking easy Mac is. I want a program? I click app store, there are thousands of programs. One click and it’s installed. No downloading, installing, having to do options etc. No wondering where Windows put shit, no looking for files. One click, done.

Hate on Mac all you want but be warned, if you ever throw yourself to it, you won’t come back. You will drink the Kool aid and if anything, be angry you didn’t do it sooner. The old argument that mac’s suck for games isn’t there anymore either. Heck, you can run Windows software on your mac as well a number of ways. Don’t knock it till ya try it. I spent years hating Mac, and looking back… I was mistaken. Badly.

Go ahead Danny, tell me how I’m wrong. :p

The stats…

64 gigs of ram. HD video editing heaven, basically. Now back to that video of Bryci and Talia… vrrooom vrooom

The video card isn’t OMFG simply because I’m not a gamer. I only have so many hours in a day and if given the chance to be making money or spending it with Bryci and Jack, or playing games…. gee, let me think about that….

This card powers 3 2560 x 1600 30” Apple Cinema HD screens fine… so I likes it.

And that is my day thus far. Tonight… is DATE NIGHT with Bryci. Hell yes.

Have a kick ass weekend people!

Anyway… it got me thinking about my old Mac Mini. Wow, that computer is really the computer that started it all for us.

Bryci and I moved to BC, we had next to nothing.. my PC died due to a power short caused by a storm. So my Windows box was dead and we were having rough times money wise. We didn’t have Bella started, hell.. we hadn’t even started GND yet. (GND was another network we started that still runs to this day, albeit without us involved) Times were tough for sure.

We decided to take a shot at a Mac Mini because it was small, simple and I had been meaning to try Mac out. B was already on Mac with her then macbook.. so it seemed like the logical choice. Wow, I was such an idiot. I had no Mac software, I had all these PC programs I was used to and now, i was forcing myself to not only learn new software but a new operating system as well.

I won’t like, I hated OS-X at first. It seemed so weird. then i started to see how much easier then windows it was… and how I wasn’t getting pissed at my computer nearly as much, and then… how the little useless Mac mini that was a little bigger then a box of pop tarts… was actually more powerful then my last PC. How can this be?

I started to learn size has zero to do with anything and the stigmas that I had regarding Mac versus Windows, were stupid. Both are great, both suck. It’s what is right for you.

I used the Mac Mini for a good year or so. I created GND using it, with B’s help. We ran the entire network from that little computer you see in this pic below.. to the left of the water bottle in the middle. Small, white, three inches high or so.

Later, as the pic shows… I went to A Mac Pro.. look at me, sporting the Captain America desktop in 2008. Sup.

(click for 2560 x 1600)

So.. where was I… oh yeah… the Mini.

Great little computer. Fucking fantastic to be honest. I upgraded to the Mac Pro for the simple reason I was starting to get into HD video editing and I needed more power. So I went from a Mini + 24 inch samsung to a Mac Pro + 30” Cinema HD screen. It was a great upgrade. Like got faster work wise, i’ll tell you that much.

I even streamlined the desk down.. it’s all i needed and sometimes, I miss the small simple desk. This desk was the balls for sure. Loved it.

So fast forward to today… I’m still on a Mac Pro, granted, my second Mac Pro.. newer model but I’m still doing HD video etc.

The Mac Mini arrives today and I had to compare it to the old one

(That’s an air purifier in the background btw, it’s not attached to the mini, heh)

I think we’re going to sell the old Mac Mini to Valerie for a steal of a deal. I upgraded the HD and the ram in it so it’s quicker then stock for sure. Not sure yet.. see if she wants it. (it’s yours if you do Val)

So that’s all the reflection for now. It’s good to look back sometimes, to know where you’ve been in the past few years, what you’ve accomplished or maybe the mistakes you made and how you learned from them. If I could go back, there are a few mistakes I made I would most definitely undo or not do. Kind of funny when I think about it… but that’s what life is, a lesson, right?

One last pic because it makes me smile.. Jack and a Bacon chew treat that we wish we’d never given him… who knew these leaked toxic color all over everything? hahahaha

It doesn’t have a hard drive though.. so I attached an Aluratek hard drive caddy…

Which allowed me to just drop an HD in the caddy complete with movies or shows downloaded etc.. connected via USB 2. So if your drive got full of movies, no worries, new HD and you’re back and running.

Again.. the menu system was sort of lame. It would list a movie title, but tell you nothing about it. Not length, who’s in it, nothing. I had previously used a hacked xbox running XBMC and that was awesome, but again… I wanted HDMI output, full dolby sound etc.

So just yesterday Apple released new hardware. One of the items they released, the new Mac Mini. It’s a 2.5 GHz dual core Intel Core i5 with 3mb on-chip shared L3 Cache with 8 gigs of DDR3 1333MHz ram. Graphics wise, it’s running a AMD Radeon HD 6630 graphics processor with 256MB of GDDR5 memory. This little sucker will run our movie center quite nicely.

Yes, this is a seriously bad ass computer for home movies.

For movie organization, we use Plex. It’s probably the best media software I have seen, it’s free, and it’s pretty much the balls. LG tv’s now come with it installed, it’s that good. No matter what you’re running, Plex dat shit. > > > http://www.plexapp.com/

It also does weather, youtube, netflix, hulu… plugins like crazy. heh.. seriously, say hello to your new best friend if you watch movies.

Check this video if you’re not convinced…

So in short.. things are good on the home movie front