Monthly Archive for July, 2005

Page 2 of 2

I Would Expect Rove to Resign, But …

Published on July 12, 2005 in Politics. 0 Comments

It looks like Karl Rove has made President Bush look like an idiot. There are stories all over the place about this, but I picked this one to link.

Under normal circumstances, under a normal administration, I’d expect Rove to resign tomorrow or the next day. But hey, I expected Donald Rumsfeld to resign about thirteen months ago, and that didn’t happen. As the story goes, Don submitted his resignation to Bush twice, and Bush refused it twice.

So, honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised by a similar turn of events this time around.

Is Anybody Else Tired of Chris Berman?

Published on July 12, 2005 in Sports. 0 Comments

The Home Run Derby was on last night. Chris Berman was the master of ceremonies and the host. Joe Morgan was the co-host. Is anybody else tired of Chris Berman? I liked his schtick for the first few years, but it’s almost like he can’t say a normal sentence anymore. It’s all just “BACK BACK BACK!” and “CURTIS MY FAVORITE MARTIN!”

When I turned on the show tonight I actually had one of those, “oh God, not …” moments when I heard Berman’s voice. Can’t they just station him permanently on the Deuce?

Okay, I Installed the Google Bar

Published on July 10, 2005 in Internet. 0 Comments

I installed it mostly for kicks and curiosity, and I suppose actually using it makes me more qualified to talk about it. Major features in it that I like:

You can drag to resize the search text box. Yahoo should definitely steal this. Wait a month.

It’s got the Pagerank thing. Curiously, it is a vertical bar on Firefox, but a horizontal bar in IE.

Spellcheck for any form you come across on the Internet. This feature is enough for me to leave it permanently installed/visible. WordPress has no built-in spellcheck, but now I’ve got one, thanks to Google.

I can configure the search box so that it opens searches in new tabs. This seems like a no-brainer for a tab-enabled browser.

The Google logo is no longer ugly. It’s been anti-aliased. It almost seems too soft now, but it’s definitely an improvement.

With that said, here’s what I’d like to see in the next version:

Networked bookmarks.

Custom link buttons (DanPremo.com).

All the functionality present in the Google mail notifier. To me this also seems like a no-brainer.

Five word review? It’s good; I’ll keep it.

Google Toolbar for Firefox

Published on July 10, 2005 in Internet. Closed

Google put out a toolbar for Firefox. I’m sticking with the Yahoo! toolbar for Firefox. For now.

The kicker is that the Yahoo! toolbar includes my Yahoo! bookmarks. It’s also very nice that the Yahoo! toolbar also tells me if I have new mail in my Yahoo! mail account, and it allows me to put in two custom links right on the bar itself (although I’d like more).

Google doesn’t have any bookmark system. However, Google does have the notification icon, which is better than the mail button on the Yahoo! toolbar in some ways, but why not have both?

I think that users who run Firefox are probably more aware of features and in turn more picky about them. Therefore, because both Yahoo! and Google have put out toolbars for Firefox, I’m hoping that they will put more thought into features. Basically what I want is that first, both companies will steal the best features from the other, and then they will come up with some stuff that no one has ever thought of but once they use it they want it all the time.

Additionally, the Yahoo! toolbar is what is keeping me from switching over to Gmail. I love the bookmarks feature.

Google’s homepage feature allows you to put a privew of your Gmail inbox right on your Google page. I have to admit, that’s pretty nice. Still, I’m on dial-up, and I use Google as my start page because it loads so quickly. The new homepage features eschews images (except for in the weather box), but when it comes to loading speed, less is always more. I can’t help but compliment the drag-and-drop rearranging feature on Google’s homepage. Never seen anything like it on a website.

So … if Google adds an online bookmarks system, and integrates it into their toolbar … I’ll probably switch.

Batman Begins and War of the Worlds

Published on July 1, 2005 in Film. 0 Comments

Within the last four days, I saw both War of the Worlds and Batman Begins with Steph. Four words.

Batman. Begins. Was. Awesome.

Now I’m not gonna rip on War of the Worlds (necessarily). It was good. But I just didn’t think it was great. For one, I think it was missing basic plot elements, like a climax.

Batman Begins, however … I loved it. Halfway through the movie, I was watching one particularly good sequence, thinking, “This movie is awesome.”

The sequence I speak of was when Batman was driving the batmobile (with a passenger) back to the batcave, and he had to go through a tunnel. The sequence through the tunnel … made me want to play the tunnel level in Halo 2. I have never before watched a scene in a movie that made me want to play a video game. One sequence in Batman Begins made me want to play one level in Halo 2. All I can say is … awesome.

I actually have no complaints about Batman Begins. I have questions about the ending, which I believe was the filmmakers’ intent. I don’t want to spoil it, which may lead me to create a Batman Begins discussion page on par with my Star Wars discussion page. (I may do the same for War of the Worlds, but for fewer reasons and with less enthusiasm.)

So … if you’ve seen Batman Begins, go see War of the Worlds. If you’re choosing between the two … go see Batman Begins.

Monthly Archive for July, 2005

Page 2 of 2

I Would Expect Rove to Resign, But …

Is Anybody Else Tired of Chris Berman?

Okay, I Installed the Google Bar

Google Toolbar for Firefox

Batman Begins and War of the Worlds

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