May 2004 Archives

Mac OS X 10.3.4 (Panther) has been released! Version Tracker has a great summary of changes here. Thus far it seems to be running smoothly and, although none of the changes particularly impact me, I'm thrilled to see them none the less. Every one of them is a genuine improvement. Good to see.

So all of you Apple users, go run Software Update.

Life takes many unsuspected twists and turns. Unfortunately, one happened rather recently. My 12" PowerBook G4 took a turn for the worse a bit over a week ago. The hard drive and flex cable failed, leaving me without a computer to work with or write with.

Thanks entirely to Apple's excellent warranty and Small Dog's excellent service technicians I am back up and running! I hope to start posting regularly again, but it will be a few days before I have everything squared away on this machine and back up to date.

Rest assured that I lost only one week of data as the failure occurred on my backup day, a Sunday, so the loss is not at all devastating. With that said, I do plan on improving my backup scheme and doing things even better than before. And, if I may say so, I think I did them rather well.

I lost some photos, but since almost nobody who reads this blog sees my photos anyway that's not a big deal to any of you. I also lost a very important phone number which I got back within an hour of having the computer online. So minimal losses all around. Smile!

I'll write more about something more interesting soon.

Killswitch Engage is a band that plays a hybrid of hardcore and metal, metalcore if you will. Apparently they got a new singer for this latest album, but I must say that he sounds pretty similar to the last one. You can notice differences in the accents and emphasis he uses, but nothing negative and furthermore nothing that leads me to believe he'll have any trouble with the old material.

I've enjoyed this latest album for sure. It's got a good deal of good grooves and harmonies on it and is definitely different from the first album. Still, it follows the same feel and sound. They're definitely establishing their fingerprint on the music market and the metal and hardcore scenes. Unique and yet not. A sound that so many have talked about achieving but never have.

I just watched The Hulk. I wish I could say something positive, I wish there was some redeeming quality. The film was terrible, though. I didn't like the effects, I didn't enjoy the plot, I thought the acting was poor, and I thought the lighting was terrible.

I really haven't enjoyed many of these comic book movies. I didn't like X-Men all that much. Spiderman, though, was very enjoyable. I look forward to Spiderman 2.

Hopefully some time soon I'll have a chance to see Van Helsing.

I'm sorry I haven't been writing much lately. Life has been hectic enough that writing has become uncommon.

That said, here is an interesting article about how Steve Jobs of Apple is advising Senator John Kerry about economic issues. I really wish I had more to say about it, but I just don't have much to say lately.