Argh! I totally understand his decision (a 3 year commitment on the other side of the planet)…

Guillermo Del Toro departs “The Hobbit”
Guillermo Del Toro announced today that he is no longer directing the two movies based on J.R.R Tolkien’s “The Hobbit”…

Argh! I totally understand his decision (a 3 year commitment on the other side of the planet has turned into 6 years, and they still can’t start filming due to MGM’s financial problems), but this is one hell of a missed opportunity.

On Facebook

Haven’t seen the #FlashForward finale yet. TV signal was bad, so we put in a Wonderfalls DVD instead. Planning to catch it on Hulu tomorrow.

Haven’t seen the #FlashForward finale yet. TV signal was bad, so we put in a Wonderfalls DVD instead. Planning to catch it on Hulu tomorrow.

That’s a huge change. You used to have to watch through the distortion, or hope for a rerun, or find someone in another area who taped it.

…or otherwise go through unofficial channels. Now, if technical problems screw up a broadcast, you’ve got Hulu, Amazon, iTunes, etc.

Gnarled Tree

Gnarled Tree

Somewhere in Cuyamaca State Park (now Cuyamaca Rancho State Park) in the mountains east of San Diego, California. We camped at Paso Picacho, but I don’t remember whether this was near the campsite or spotted during a hike.

This was taken in April 2002, about a year and a half before a devastating fire destroyed large areas of the park.

(It was also about a year before I got my first digital camera, so this image was scanned from a print.)

Santa Ana Mountains Snow II

Santa Ana Mountains Snow from Irvine

According to Flickr, this is my most interesting* photo that isn’t someone in costume at a fan convention. It’s #68 on the list!

The photo was taken December 18, 2008, after a storm passed through Orange County and did something unusual: it blanketed the Santa Ana Mountains with snow. Saddleback typically gets a light dusting a couple of times a year, and the next peak down sometimes gets a little snow that melts by noon, but it’s rare for the snow to reach any lower.

The vantage point is a housing development on Quail Hill, looking southeast over the Irvine Spectrum area. You can see the Great Park Balloon near the left. Saddleback itself is out of frame to the right, but you can see its base (the peaks are covered in clouds) in the panorama I shot at the same time.

*Flickr’s “interestingness” is a measure that combines a count of views, comments, and “favorites.” The exact balance is secret, but from what I can tell, comments outweigh favorites, which outweigh views.

I can’t say I didn’t see it coming. FlashForward has been a study in missed opportunities…

[ABC Cancels Romantically Challenged, Scrubs, Ted, Flashforward]

I can't say I didn't see it coming. FlashForward has been a study in missed opportunities from episode two onward, and Better Off Ted had “Too Good to Last” stamped on every frame. OTOH, at least we know ABC will *show* the last two episodes of FF. I'm not so confident about Ted.

On Facebook

Re: iPad comics?

Ignoring the iPad specifically for a moment, there are circumstances when a tablet is actually more appropriate than a laptop/notebook.

A few years ago, a friend of mine had a job inspecting buildings to see whether they complied with building codes. She carried around a tablet, not a notebook, because when you’re wandering around a building, it’s easy to check something off with a stylus or touchscreen while you carry the device, but a pain to have to stop, look for a place to set down a notebook, open it up, and then find the right spot with the touchpad or keyboard.

More recently, I read an article by someone who spent a business trip sick in bed, and found that it was a lot easier to use his new iPad in bed than to cross the room and sit at the desk to use his laptop.

Yeah, the iPad has problems (foremost, IMO, the fact that Apple has veto power over what you can and can’t install on it — which is part of why I own an Android phone and not an iPhone), but let’s not get caught up in the “I don’t have a use for it, therefore nobody does” mentality.