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How much do you love Star Wars? Well, Matt could tell you about me, he was there! In the middle of a Hoth-sized snowstorm, I drove an hour to see the re-release in 1997, on the DAY OF MY WEDDING REHEARSAL! I could have missed it, but it was that important to me to see it on the big screen with good sound.

4 years later, frustrated with the lack of Star Wars in Dolby Digital sound, I purchased import VCDs from Japan, but I think they were bootlegs… and thus, I have not been able to enjoy my favorite movies of all time in the way I’ve wanted to.. until now.

This week, I picked up the Star Wars Trilogy on DVD, and have spent five days so far watching it. Here’s the gist..

DISC 1: Star Wars (A NEW HOPE) – Its almost exactly like the 1997 special edition, with 2 exceptions. First, Greedo doesn’t shoot first anymore.. its at the same time. Second, Digital Jabba looks a LOT better. Its still the same movie you remember. The commentary is the highlight here, with Lucas, Carrie Fisher, and others talking about the Behind the Scenes (and dropping hints about Ep. 3)

DISC 2: The Empire Strikes Back – Again, almost like the 1997 special edition, with a couple of exceptions. First, Boba Fett is now voiced by the actor from the new trilogy, which is jarring if you’re not used to it. Second, the Emperor is played by the same actor as Jedi and the new trilogy (originally, it was a different guy). Third, and best, Luke no longer screams when he lets himself fall – which was my biggest beef with the special edition, now corrected. The commentary here is awesome too, with all the others plus the Director, Irvin Kirshner. Yes, this is my fave movie of all time, and its fun to see it again.

DISC 3: Return of the Jedi – This is also like the 1997 release, with some exceptions. Unfortunately the dance number is still there. So are the ewoks. The biggest thing here is at the end of the movie. When the ewoks are celebrating, we cut to Naboo, where the Gungans (Jar jar’s people) yell “Weesa Free!!”. Also, when we see the Jedi ghosts, Anakin is now played by Hayden Christianson from the new trilogy. The commentary here is good too, but beware if you want to avoid all spoilers about Ep. 3.

DISC 4: Extra stuff: This is the cool stuff. A 2 hour documentary called Empire of Dreams is candid and detailed about how Star Wars came to be, and it is AWESOME! Also included are 2 other lesser shorts about the Lightsaber and the influence of Star Wars on other directors. For real fun, watch the old TV and Trailer commercials. And, beware here.. there is a Documentary about Episode 3 whose name is a spoiler, and it has images of lightsaber duels and costumes that will spoil stuff in Ep. 3 if you want to keep it all a secret. I watched it and it got me pumped, but some people may think it gives away too much.

The sound and picture on these discs are AMAZING, the best of any DVD release I’ve ever seen. The box is elegant silver, and is reasonably priced (you can find it for 38 bucks – for four discs and 3 movies, that ain’t bad!)

So, yeah, as a fan, Bug Big thumbs up (especially for the commentaries) and label me Psyched for Episode 3 next summer: Revenge of the Sith

This afternoon I was listening to an “All Things Considered” report on how blogging contributed to the CBS acknowledgement of their goof in reporting the Bush-National Guard story.

NPR was talking to a blogging expert (however that’s defined) because some blog group is claiming responsibility for breaking the source of the mistake to CBS. Anyway, NPR wanted some techie on to rap about the purpose of blogs. This guest talked about how people use blogs as a way to find others who share their opinion.

I’m glad that on barnson.org, we have different opinions, and we use the forum as a way to discuss our differences. It would be lame if we all thought the same. It’s good to know that we can have a place to discuss our different social, cinema, and political views, even if the majority of you are psycho, right-wing Republican nutcases.

Also, I offer that “All Things Considered” is the best news programming in the world.

Sammy G

Penjacking – Safety alert: Kryptonite brand locks can be picked with ordinary Bic pens. [Snopes]

Yep, it turns out the vaunted “Kryptonite” locks, which I’ve been using on my bicycles since 1992, can be easily picked with an ordinary Bic pen. I always thought they were excellent locks, and very difficult to cut even with bolt cutters.

Heh, there’s this old bike lock that’s been attached to a fence across the street from the ZCMI center in downtown Salt Lake City for the last three years. Maybe I should try this out on it and rid the city of a minor eyesore?

Ok I know there is computer geeks galore here, so tell me, what internet browser is best for the windows xp platform and why.

Thanks Curtis

Hi everyone, I guess I have finally joined the elite club at barnson.org, yippeee, now have a barnson.org email addres, how exciting!

I have been following the threads over at trekweb.com and it looks like kirk may return, for you trekkie fans that care anyway.

Angelina is pushing another tooth in, so maybe by christmas we might have 3, guess she decided to shift into gear and get with the program.

I will graduate June 5th, yippee, I will have a degree so I will be dangerous.

How many Yahoo Group Members does it take to change a light bulb?

1 to change the light bulb but after posting the light bulb story…

• 14 to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light bulb could have been changed differently
• 7 to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs
• 27 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light bulbs
• 53 to flame the spell checkers
• 41 to correct spelling/grammar flames
• 6 to argue over whether it’s “lightbulb” or “light bulb”
• … another 6 to condemn those 6 as anal-retentive
• 2 industry professionals to inform the group that the proper term is “lamp”
• 27 to post URL’s where one can see examples of different light bulbs
• 14 to post that the URL’s were posted incorrectly and then post the corrected URL’s
• 12 to post to the group that they will no longer post because they cannot handlethe light bulb controversy
• 4 to suggest that posters request the light bulb FAQ
• 44 to ask what is a “FAQ”
• 4 to say “didn’t we go through this already a short time ago?”
• 143 to say “do a Google search on light bulbs”
• 1 forum lurker to respond to the original post 6 months from now and start it all over again

So here’s my question.. am I the only one who, now that I’m at the end of the training, is just itching to get back to the creative stuff?

Secondary question.. what is it like seeing a baby born?

Wait, back up.. no kids here yet.. but.. well… I officially blogslacked last week. Didn’t do my weekly post for the first time in like months.

Unfortunately, I have been overwhelmed with my wacked life. Work, doing the score, starting 2 new movies.. and the big one.. my final semester in Nursing school.

For those who haven’t been paying attention, I will be a registered nurse in January, and this, the final semester is somehow more real and more intense now that I know the end is near. Like so many others, I have chosen a “safer” path, hoping one day to pursue the artistic dream, but inspired by the concept of home, wife, and family.

This semester, I will be doing my mother/baby rotation. I have already spent 2 days in a nursery, and will be helping deliver babies sometime next week.

So yeah.. any baby stories?

And how about those of us who have chosen the “safer path” – or have not.. any thoughts?

I saw this today on an email newsletter. Thought it was cute and you computers geeks might think it is good for a laugh:

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Having recently survived (barely) an upgrade of the Windows XP software on my home PC, I began to wonder what might happen if Microsoft decided to go into the gardening business:

• 97 percent of all flowers, shrubs, trees, fertilizers, trowels, rakes, hoes, spades, lawn mowers, tillers, hoses, sprinklers, pots, fountains, patio blocks, landscape timbers, stepping stones, garden gnomes, and pink flamingos would be sold (or licensed) by Microsoft.
• The other three percent of gardening stuff would look really cool but cost twice as much.
• A Microsoft rake would work only on leaves from Microsoft trees.
• Whenever you planted a new Microsoft shrub, two other shrubs that had been thriving would suddenly die.
• Microsoft vines more than two years old would no longer be supported by Microsoft trellises.
• Plants would be called “software” and tools would be called “hardware.” Problems would be called “user error.”
• Before you could turn off a Microsoft string trimmer you would be asked, “Are you sure?”
• You could not divide a Microsoft perennial without violating copyright laws.
• You couldn’t purchase Microsoft grass seed without also purchasing 20 pounds of Microsoft lawn fertilizer.
• Microsoft’s All-America Selections for 2005 would come out in 2007.

EDIT by matthew: Fixed formatting, tpyo.

For those who hadn’t caught the news, it turns out that beer is good for you. In a recent long-term study, scientists found that consumption of one bottle of beer per day “reduces your chances of contracting cataracts or atherosclerosis (narrowing of the arteries caused by the buildup of plaque) by 50 per cent.”

Yep, you heard that right: you’re half as likely to get hardened arteries and cataracts if you drink a bottle a day.

Don’t get your hopes up too high, though. The study also found that drinking a second bottle dramatically reduced the benefit, and drinking three or more a day adversely affected these same risk factors.

I guess I’ll take my chances with hard arteries and cataracts by making other improvements in my diet, though. I hate the smell and taste of beer.

So a friend (thanks, Phil!) just invited me to join Gmail.

In case you haven’t heard about this, Gmail is a web-based email service offered by Google. They pay for the service by delivering targetted ads determined by scanning the content of the email message. They give you a GIGABYTE of storage. They also filter junk mail pretty well.

People have made many tools to allow you to access your gmail account in ways the developers didn’t intend. You can use it is a POP3 account, and relay your mail through it using your gmail credentials. You can mount it as a filesystem in GNU/Linux, even, using that 1GB as free, private, online storage.

The downsides?

1. I can’t read my mail offline. Not to fear, though; I’ve already begun hacking on offline IMAP to see if I can figure out how to integrate it into existing Python libraries and synchronize to my gmail account. That way I can run Mutt when I’m not connected, and dig through archives even if I don’t have an active Internet connection. This may take a while, though; I’m no stellar Python hacker.
2. Targetted ads. You have no privacy. I guess I’m getting used to it, and am beginning to use the phrase “never send in an email or post in a weblog anything you wouldn’t like to see stapled to your resume”.
3. The interface is slick, but it takes some getting used to. I discovered that Gmail supports keyboard shortcuts, though, and that should dramatically speed up my data entry.
4. It’s still Beta. Which means it’s in testing, and your data is not guaranteed. No telling what they’re going to do with the data once they’re out of beta, though I suspect it would be public relations suicide for Google to nuke everybody’s accounts when they go live.
5. I can’t see that there’s any kind of Bayesian filtering built in, but it might be there and I just don’t see it.
6. I like the idea of having multiple folders where my messages live. It makes tracking conversations in mailing lists much more intuitive, and I can ignore them for days or weeks at a time. Gmail instead uses the idea of “labels” rather than folders; you can label messages certain ways, and they become “virtual” folders by using Google’s search engine. I’ll have to see if I get used to it.
7. No dynamic signature creation. I may have to hack myself another Python script to automatically change my signature every few minutes. It’s become a trademark of my email messages that I include a brief quip at the end of each message. I use the UNIX “fortune” program to generate these on my FreeBSD box, and use the Mutt mailer as my front-end at the moment.
8. No PGP or GPG integration. Until I have figured out the solution to digitally signing all my messages, gmail will be a non-starter for my active email usage. It’s too easy to spoof people’s email addresses, and I want “plausible deniability” — if I didn’t sign it, one is left either believing I intentionally didn’t sign something, or that it wasn’t me. Having had my email address spoofed in the past, I love using GPG to digitally sign my messages. Heck, it also works as good as a physical signature for certain documents.
9. Spammers are already abusing it. Yep, they are trying to nail people with gmail accounts, and trying to pretend to be from gmail themselves when in fact they are using some anonymous relay in Brazil to attempt to dump their wares on a gullible populace. Have I mentioned before how much I despise spammers who lie in trying to sell their stuff? I have a new respect for spammers who send their mail from SPF-registered servers, using legitimate email addresses. Many of them need to hide their personal information to prevent anti-spammers from abusing them, but if the return email address is legitimate, and they use a server registered to their business so that people who simply hate unsolicited mail can block them, well, that’s OK, you know? It’s the ones who lie and spoof mail addresses that drive me crazy — which represents about 99% of spam I receive.

Well, that’s about the size of it. Any of you have a gmail account yet? And if you could have an ideal email account, what would it be like?