I’m all caught up on Big Brother, at last.  From here on out, we’ll have spoilers for the season so far.  If you’re not caught up, you’ve been warned.

Boy, what a bunch of criers they have this year.  Who in that house hasn’t cried yet?  Ryan, maybe?

I’m torn between who should win.  It’s either Ryan or Sharon.  While playing vastly different games, they’re both following definite winning strategies.  Ryan’s is more dangerous, though.  Everything he accused Natalie of last week, he’s guilty of.  He has a deal with everyone left in the house to be in the Final Two with them.  Somehow, he’s managed to keep that secret.  Somehow, nobody else in the house has compared notes on Ryan, who’s become something of a House leader and, thus, painted a large target on his back that nobody has yet seen.  That’s remarkable.

Sharon is the first contestant EVER to truly play under the radar.  Others have gotten to the end by riding coattails and then claimed, retroactively, that their intent was to play “Under The Radar.” Sharon actually does it, and works it beautifully.  She stays out of arguments.  She isn’t disagreeable.  She never makes a spectacle of herself.  She just quietly plants bugs in people’s ears and listens to them when they talk.  She stays out of others’ arguments, then reaps the benefits.  She’s playing the game, on purpose, in a low key manner.  If she makes it to the end, she could make a convincing case that she’s the real powerhouse who deserves to win.

This last Head of Household game annoyed me, though.  Using the hamsters as a pre-existing relationship in the house is a trick question.  And, of course, it’s the one that cost Sharon HoH.  Well, that and her ridiculously low answer for the tie-breaking question.  When three people were up in the glass house for two hours each, the answer has to be greater than 130 (2 hours 10 minutes).  Idiot.  I’d just hate to see her lose the whole game for one stupid mistake.

The true power in the game this week is in the Power of Veto.  He or She who wins that, controls who leaves (but not Ryan) this week.  Period.  So while it’s unfortunate that Sharon didn’t win the HoH, she still has a good chance of making it through another week. I think the boys want to take out Sheila just as much as they do Sharon.  And while Ryan’s back door deal with Sharon seems to have been forgotten, maybe it can be revived.  He doesn’t need her, though, so she needs to make a good case that her three votes in the Jury House aren’t enough.

One last thought: Is Natalie the biggest psycho the BB house has ever seen?  You can see the crazy in her eyes, for goodness’ sakes!

Babylon 5 is now available at Hulu.com

It’s just season one right now.  Sound quality seems really good.  Video is, well, decent Flash animation. Still stuff looks good.  Heavy motion is rocky.

I’m a big fan of the To Do list. There’s too much stuff to do every day, and my notoriously ADD-addled brain can’t remember what I’m doing from minute to minute, let alone hours or days in advance. (The ADD portion of that previous sentence is an observation of my wife’s, and not a medical condition.)

To help that, I always carry a piece of paper in my pocket to remind me of what’s going on. In an attempt to draft off the success of all of those websites out there that tell you how to hack your life, carry a Hipster PDA, or become zen through organization, I thought I’d share how my To Do list is made.

First step: buy a Chunky Pad at CVS. You can likely get such a thing at any stationery or office supply store. The important thing is that the pages are 4 x 6 inches (10.2 x 15.2 cm).

Second Step: Rip out a sheet and fold it in half along a vertical line. On the left side, I write down things I want to do as I think of them, at ANY time of the day. There’s always a pen within reach. I’m at my desk all day at work where I have pens. I have a couple more in the car. I have one in my jacket pocket. They’re laying about the house all over, though they seem to go missing from there a lot more often.

The right side of the page is for recurring things, or things that can be categorized. Evenly spaced down that side, I write “Pipeline,” “VandS,” and “Food Store.” When I have an idea for a column or something to research for one, I put it under Pipeline. There’s always room there. When I have an idea for a blog post, or want to remember to do something for the website, I write it under VandS. We’re always running out of something at the house, so the food store entry is a given. Today, we’re almost out of sandwich bags. I’d never remember that the next time I go for the weekly food order. If I stop by the store after work for something else tonight, I’ll be smart enough to quickly glance at my To Do list and look like a genius to my wife when I get home.

I can fold the paper in half horizontally next and it tucks neatly into my shirt pocket, wallet, or pants pocket.

Just cross the items off as you do them, and then — here’s another big key — rewrite the list every three days or so. Those items that are still lingering on the list after three days? They might not be strictly necessary. They may not be important. Feel free to drop them off your list of things you want to do with your precious time. Everything else? Write it again. Just the annoyance of knowing you’ll be writing it again in a few days if you don’t actually do it will be enough to make you compete a task just to strike it off your list.

It’s very rare that this list grows past half the sheet of paper, but I do write small. The dead zone in the bottom left is often used to write down this week’s comics that I want to pick up at the shop when I get there. If I need to write down a quick phone number or address, I can always use the back of the To Do list, too. It’s very handy and very sturdy. Surprisingly so.

That’s how I keep track of most things I need to do from day to day.

Writer early and write often. That’ll make your To Do list a part of your routine and an essential one in no time.

If you have an iPhone and are looking for something digital, I’d suggest TaDaList.com.

One final note: My anniversary and my wife’s birthday are burnt into my brain. If you need help remembering that, I can’t help you. Try Google Calendar or something.

Coolest thing you’ll see/hear this week:

Boy, RC Car Recreate Super Mario Bros. Theme

If you missed it, I can save you an hour:

The bottom three: Syesha, Kristy, and Brooke.

Ryan declared Syesha safe first, just to completely throw off my game.  Really.  I’m going to keep picking Syesha to go home every week until I get it right.  I’ll be right eventually. I just know it.

At that point, Kristy started to say her good-byes, but Brooke tried to shush her, telling her that she never knows what’s going to happen.  But she did.  Kristy went home tonight.

It’s always sad when someone peaks too late in the game, but that’s what happened here.

Mariah Carey sang. I think. Her obnoxiously fake diamond-studded mic stand and mic were blinding me from her orange skin, and the volume level on her mic was so low that it sounded like she was singing far in the background behind the backup singers.  When she screamed, it just about leveled out. Maybe that was the point?  Set the mic for the high notes, and let the rest fade away? Awful song, in any case.

Also, we finally had the caller from hell, as one girl was giving shout outs from all her friends to various contestants.  That whole segment is a very very bad and unnecessary idea.  I don’t know why they haven’t killed it yet.
Next week: I’ll call it now — Syesha goes home.

Mariah Carey night.  UGH.  This could be tedious. Poor Syesha will get killed by the judges.  Let me just say this up front: Vocal gymnastics a la Carey are about my least favorite form of music in the last 20 years.  This could be ugly tonight.

Speaking of Mariah: Did she borrow the high-waisted pants from Ramiele?  And where did she order up orange skin?

David Archuleta - “When You Believe” - Are those pants pleather?!?  Ah, yes, the fine art of screaming around a song, of making every syllable take up ten notes.  He did good for this kind of song.  Very strong. I just hate these songs.  It’s going to be a long night, you’ve been warned.

Carly Smithson - “Without You” - I’m very happy Mariah is naming these songs as they go along. Though I do like this one.  And there’s room in this song for her to arrange it. I want Latoya London to sing this, though.  That’s a HUGE song.  She didn’t try to scream it at the start, which is a good thing.  When she got to the second half, she powered right through it.

Paula liked her “restraint,” which I think is the perfect description of what I just spent four dozen words describing.

Syesha Mercado - “Vanishing” - Syesha can, as Randy might put it, blow. She’s amazing. She has a healthy set of lungs.  It’s awful as a song, but she kicked the song’s butt. She can sing, and the judges will NEVER give her the credit for it.  She made “whoa oh oh oh oh” sound good, technically.

Brooke White - “Hero” - She did the right thing in sticking with the piano and not bringing in the band. She truly made the song her own by NOT trying to ape Mariah at any point at all in the song.  Even as she was visibly shaking and crying in the last half, she kept it up.  I liked it.

Simon’s analogy about a hamburger without a slab of beef is all wrong.

Kristy Lee Cook - “Forever” - Wow, she sounds great tonight. She can hit those notes I never would have given her credit for.  That was impressive, possibly the best song for her of the series so far.  I didn’t think she’d go after the Mariah notes on that song, but she did.

Boy, the piano guy is keeping busy tonight.

David Cooke - “Always Be My Baby” - As Mariah said, it was “haunting” in the beginning part, and it could be a hit single for him easily.  I liked it a lot. Not much more to say than that.  This kid is goooooood.

Jason Castro - “I Don’t Want To Cry” - Poor sap has to follow David Cooke AND close out the show?  This can’t possibly be good.  Well, it’s not bad.  But I’m not inspired.  Eh.  I’m done with him, honestly.  Randy called it a “Weird beach luau” and I know exactly what he means.  Must be the drums.  Eh.

From best to worst for the night: David Cooke, Syesha Mercado, David Archuleta, Kristy Lee Cook, Carly Smithson tied with Brooke White, then Jason Castro.

Who will be the bottom three?  Syesha, Brooke, and Jason.  Dark Horse: Carly.

Syesha goes home. She doesn’t deserve it, though.

On the other hand, there’s no reason to play out the rest of the season. Give the crown to David Cooke today and let’s be done with it.  He’s running away with the show this season.  He’s the only one you can’t wait to see each week, just to see what he pulls out of his hat next.  More often than not, it’s gold.  The others have skill and personality, but Cooke has the musical power.  Even if he doesn’t win, he’ll have a hit album on his hand.

De Blieck Out!

Took lots of pictures last Saturday, despite some abysmal lighting conditions.  I’m sure all the pics will look great in black and white, but the color ones look washed out.  The sky was a grey and white mess.  No blue to speak of.  But I enjoyed the wind and the 76 degree temperature during a hike up Ramapo Mountain, just past Van Slyke Castle.  From one old tower, you could look across the way and see its pair, now done up as a cell phone tower site.  Behind it is the New York City skyline.

This is where I was standing when I took that shot, more or less:

Click on the pics to see them at larger sizes. (I say this praying that WordPress actually drops the pics in and doesn’t just show a link.  I guess we’ll all find out the hard way.)

Here’s a look at some of the highlights from my Twitter postings of the last week.  Updates, where necessary, occur in italics afterwards.

• Yes, the Pipeline Podcast is malfunctioning due to the CBR update. Sad. But we’re working on it. SOMEONE is working on it. . . (It’s been down for two weeks now.  Sad.)
  

• Just deleted a dozen users who registered at my blog. Clearly, all spammers. 10 were one letter variations of the same name. Why?!?

• Lorem Ipsum banners. The web is now complete. http://www.lipsum.com/banners/

• I think I might be having a thrisis: http://tinyurl.com/6jldzj

• This is just another day I have to get through.

• @cskilpatrick - Great, now I want to go back to my HOMICIDE DVDs to pick up where I left off. That and SHIELD: greatest cop shows ever.

• Nope, couldn’t stomach watching Idol Gives Back tonight. Caught some early parts, then fast forwarded to infinity.

• What happens when you don’t check Twitter for 15 hours? SEVEN PAGES’ OF “Recent.” UGH (I shortly thereafter stopped following one or two people who clearly work from home during the day and can constantly update with every little thing.)

• It’s “I have seen” or “I’ve seen,” not “I seen,” you illiterate inbred teenaged moron.

• I love how I have to make a copy of each Tweet before posting it, as Twitter is eating half of them this week. . .

• For months now, I’ve been stuck in the 180s for # of Feedburner RSS subscribers to my blog. What’s it going to take to get another 20?!?

• Twitter still sucking at accepting new posts. This is getting very very annoying. (This seems to have been fixed now.)
  

• I don’t care what the reason is for it, I just know I DO NOT WANT CELL PHONES ON AIRPLANES. It’s the last oasis of sanity. 

• @FyodorFish - Like many, I’m fine with the lie that phones interrupt plane instruments, if it keeps those extra voices down.

• Humming Jonathan Coulton’s “Tom Cruise Crazy” tonight.  (I still am. It’s a catchy ditty, even if you think Tom Cruise jokes are too easy to be funny.)

• Hmm, Amazon Associates isn’t giving me any credit for any purchases made through my site this month, all of a sudden. Hope it’s temporary.

• Just realized that with my new camera lens, my old polarizer filter officially fits NOTHING. ::sigh::

• @ronxo - Haircuts always look better a week later. I like that week, though, as washing it only takes 30 seconds. I am happy to be a guy

• Just read Walking Dead #49 - holy shitake mushrooms. I stared at one page with my jaw on the ground for a minute before moving on. . . (That would be page 10. A review is coming in Tuesday’s Pipeline.)

• Sometimes I post a Twitter message just to remember where I left off for when I check back in 12 hours later. . .

• Wow, looking at the “Everyone” tab is disconcerting. A cacophony. Noisy. Wow.

• Clay Aiken during Season Two of American Idol with that big voice and young look — it’s Rick Astley, isn’t it?!?

• Had a great day out hiking and taking pictures. I’m thinking there’s a BIG blog post coming this week.

‘Survivor’ moving to high-definition - Entertainment News, Survivor, Media - Variety

“Survivor” is going HD.

Granddaddy of the current generation of competition-based reality shows will make the jump to high-definition starting with its 17th edition, which lenses this summer for a fall debut.

It’s about time!

The new Canon XSi camera is now in stock at several major retailers.  This can only mean one thing: The Canon 17-55mm IS lens will be in stock, too.  Let me recap:

As you may remember, the refurbished Canon 28-135mm IS lens I bought when I got my Canon XTi on January 24th never worked right.  The autofocus was iffy, at best.  I finally returned it to Adorama last week and got a refund on the purchase price for it.  Props to Adorama, who handled everything so well. Seriously: I called them up.  They e-mailed me a copy of the original purchase receipt.  I packed that up in the box along with the defective lens, mailed it back to them, and got a refund on the purchase price less than a week later.  Combining that with some Amazon points and a few bucks from my PayPal account, I drastically changed my SLR lens set-up.

I now own a Canon 70-300mm IS f/4-5.6 (refurb, but fully functional this time!) and a Tamron 17-35mm f/2.8-4 lens, in addition to the Canon 50mm f/1.8 I bought with the camera in the first place.  I pretty much have 17-300mm covered this way.  I was concerned, briefly, that I didn’t have a good “walking around” lens to cover the general 30-130mm area.  But in looking back at the pictures I’ve taken in the first two months I picked up my camera, they tended to all be at either extreme end of the 28-135mm lens I was using.  They were all in the 28-35 range, or in the 100-135mm range.  Or, I was using the 50mm.  So now I have that 50mm and I have two lens that specialize at and improve upon those two focal lengths.  I may be switching lenses a little more often, but I’ll be getting better pictures. With a little bit of use, we’ll find out if I’ll be using the 50mm or the 17-35mm as the “walking around” lens of choice.

I wound up buying the 17-35mm lens because the Canon 18-55mm IS lens has been on back order everywhere since it came out a couple of months ago.  I don’t see that changing anytime soon, particularly as the XSi uses it as the kit lens and will no doubt be using up vast quantities of the item.

Or, now that I purchased something else, the lens I wanted in the first place will flood the market.  UGH.  The good news is, the Tamron I bought got very similar ratings to the Canon and even the Sigma lenses I considered.  I don’t think I lost any quality for the photography I’ll be doing.

If I get more serious down the road, I might sell the 70-300mm to go for the 70-200mm f/4L that Canon has for a couple hundred more.  It’s a beautiful lens, but just a little out of my price range at this point. I also wanted to go for the extra 100mm. I’m greedy.  And the IS will help, too.  The L lens doesn’t have IS.  (It does if you want to drop an extra grand on the lens, and that freaks me out.  I’ll get there someday, I’m sure.  I hope.  I need to make money off this before I could justify that expense, though.)

The picture included with this post was taken with the 70-300mm lens at full extension. It’s also my textbook example for why black and white rules. The color picture was very plain.  Converted to black and white with some color adjustements, it really sings.

Happy (Day Before) Tax Day (in the U.S.A.)!  What better way to spend your tax refund (I’m being optimistic for you all) than by buying a new DVD? Don’t tell the wife; just sneak out and do it.  Or, stay in, click on one of the great Amazon links incorporated so seamlessly into this post, and click away.  Use One Click shopping if you have Amazon Prime.  Go nuts!

• Juno

This is really the release everyone is waiting for, isn’t it?  I think I’ll wait for the Apple TV rental.  Please note, though, that the two disc DVD edition seen above comes with a digital copy.  Pretty cool.

• Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead

Never heard of it, but Sidney Lumet directs an all-star cast here including Ethan Hawke, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alberty Finney, and Marisa Tomei.  Impressive.

• In The Name of The Kind: A Dungeon Siege Tale

That’s a video game-based movie starring Jason Statham.  On the other hand, Uwe Boll directs it.  ::gulp::

• Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem

Yes, they made a sequel.  Go fig.

• American Dad, Season Three

I haven’t seen the show in a year, but I know I liked it early on.  FAMILY GUY is still far superior, though I haven’t watched more than the STAR WARS episode of that in a year, either. ::sigh::

• Alien Nation: The Ultimate Movie Collection

I figure there have to be one or two fans of that series out there reading this.

Next week: I don’t know yet.  Tune in next Monday to find out!

Best thing I’ve seen all week:

Apple - Trailers - Redbelt

David Mamet is writing and producing. Ricky Jay, Joe Montegna, Rebecca Pidgeon are all in it. So is Tim Allen.  Fascinating.  Opening May 9th.

“Expect a shocking dismissal this week.” -Me, yesterday

Well.  I very nearly got it right.  Two of my three Bottom Three picks landed there.  My dark horse candidate rounded things out and was the one to eventually go home.

Shocking.  And not shocking.

Simply put, the three best singers in the competition were in the bottom three this week: Syesha, Carly, and Michael.  (Shades of that Fantasia/Latoya/Jennifer week, so many years ago, but minus Elton John’s “racist America” component that I harp on so frequently.)

Please note that I didn’t call them the best Idol contestants.  I think, though, that those three have the best vocal abilities.  They just have other problems that prevent them from being effective contestants.  All three picked bad songs this week.  Syesha keeps falling into the trap of picking songs by divas that she WILL be compared to, unfavorably. (Wanna bet she goes with a Mariah song next week?) Carly picks songs that don’t help to define who she is as a singer.  She’s a very good singer, but does she have a style?  A niche?  Anything?  And Michael picked a song that he couldn’t possibly do anything with, aside from a decent karaoke performance/imitation of Steven Tyler.

All three picked the worst week possible to trip up — this was a week in which nobody shined and nobody faltered in a major way.  Even David Cooke’s disaster wasn’t a crash and burn.  It was a very poor song selection.  And while IDOL still had a season high voter turnout, I bet it was fairly widespread.  No single contestant likely brought out their voters, either to save them from themselves or to boost them for a job very very well done.  (Kristy likely benefitted from extremely good song selection.)

When that situation happens, it’s all up for grabs.  Anyone could go home.  And someone out of left field did.  (::ahem:: As I predicted.)  Unless Michael defined himself more clearly, he was never going to win this competition.  David Cooke outsings him more consistently from week to week in a defined rocker way.  Michael could do that well, but he also veered off into other styles that prevented easy encapsulation.

One last thing: I’m glad Brooke was safe.  She’s adorable.

Twitter has been remarkably spam-free in its first year of existence. There’s no way to use the service, as is, to push messages into people’s faces.  You have to friend someone to follow them, but they’re not obliged to follow you back.

That was an early mistake some users made when Twitter first came on the scene.  Used to services like Facebook and MySpace, where large numbers were good and social convention demanded you friend someone back out of politeness, new Twitterers automatically followed anyone who followed them.  They soon learned that you can’t follow everyone.  Sure, you can, but it’s more time than it’s worth.  And if you have all Twitter messages in your feed going to your cell phone, you were in for an expensive day if you paid by the message.

In any case, people are smarter now. As many people can follow them as they like, but they’ll only follow a small number or percentage back. (There are exceptions, of course, and Robert Scoble is an extreme outlier to this.)

But ANYONE can follow you on Twitter.  I get an e-mail every time someone does.  Sadly, half of the new followers I get these days aren’t real people.  They’re new Twitter-related products or services.  They’re scam artists.  They’re spammers trying to work a new system.  I don’t use their product, so why would I care about them?  Still, no harm no foul.  They can’t spam me, so they don’t bother me.  I’d like my Number of Followers stat NOT to be inflated by such barnacles and clingers-on, but it’s not worth the time to go into the settings to ban them.  Though it may be soon. . .

However, at a time when new Twitter services are popping up like moles waiting to be whacked at a carnival, I can’t help but get the sinking feeling that the spammers are coming to Twitter, and it’ll happen via one of these services.

One new service that launched in the last month will suggest new friends to you.  It follows who you’re following and then branches out to who they’re following and presents you with people of interest that others mutually follow.  Isn’t that a handy way for potential spammers to get your Twitter name automatically, without investing much man power into compiling a list of people to follow?  (No, I’m not naming them.  They annoyed a number of people earlier this week by suddenly friending them. They’re spammers, as far as I’m concerned, and don’t deserve the name recognition.)

Even better, this service went and added 8000 users as a friend.  They claim that they friended only those people who were looking you up via their service.  They don’t tell you that when they offer you their service. It’s a back door.  That might not be “spam” in the traditional sense, but it’s definitely “spam” in the Twitter sense.  They’re not following me because they’re interested in what I say. They’re following me to increase their own stats or their own service’s effectiveness.  I’m not quite sure what it is.  Can someone with the Twitter API enlighten me on this?  What privileges does following someone give you that just looking them up out of the blue not give you?

Twitter also has, built in to the web site, a tab to see a list of all the people who’ve replied to you, by prepending “@” to your user name.  Now, a spambot can span the tree of users, compile a lengthy list of those they’d like to advertise to (using a Small URL that looks benign), and get users’ attention by replying directly to them. It’s no problem to send the same message hundreds of times with a different user’s name at the beginning.  Twitter might have some sort of built-in control limiting your number of posts per minute.  I don’t know.  But spammers are a patient lot.  They’ll send all those Tweets out eventually.  And all those people who want to see who’s talking directly to them will end up seeing pages of spam messages, losing all the direct messages sent to themselves. In order to not lose the functionality of the “REPLIES” tab, they’ll have to learn to deal with it.

The era of Twitter Spam is almost upon us.  Will Twitter be able to program around them?  Will it take too much work to avoid them for users?  Could it result in the death of Twitter?  Not in the short run, no. But spammers know how to get what they want.  They always win.  There’s no way to stop them effectively.  It’s sad, but true.  Everything is eventually ruined, often by them. (Have you ever turned off the spam filter on your e-mail or in the comments engine of your blog?  It’s ugly out there.)

Enjoy Twitter while it lasts, kids.

Update: (11 Apr 2008) I’m not the only one noticing this.

Last week, I spent five days at an off-site IT training thing.  I learned the basics of computer networking, if you were curious.  Some of it I had already known.  Most of it was either new to me or taught in greater detail than I had ever cared to know before I started my current job. So it’s all good.  I got lucky and had a good instructor, a friendly class, and a relatively short commute there.

In retrospect, though, there are a number of things I wish I had done differently.

On the first day, the instructor ran late.  It was only by five minutes or so, but it presented a golden opportunity I failed to seize.  Those other dozen people in the room had no idea who I was. I should have walked up to the front of the room and started teaching absolute gibberish, pretending to be the instructor.  I’m sure I could have filled five minutes with three letter acronyms and techy-sounding talk.

Each of us had a name tent - a piece of cardboard that folded into a triangle that you could put in front of you with one side facing the instructor that had room to write your name on.  At the beginning of class, he handed out markers for each of us to write our name out with. He made a comment about how some of the markers were scented, and so to be careful which one you picked.  When my turn came to pick a marker, I went with one that looked like it might have a fruity flavor I could stand, in case the scent was overwhelming.  And having spent a good portion of the previous weekend with my nieces, I didn’t blink twice at picking that pink marker.  And so, for the entire week, my name was written in front of me in giant pink letters.  Why didn’t I pick the blue or black marker? I like the smell of black licorice!

Finally, I picked the wrong seat. I was in the back row, which was good for an easy bathroom exit strategy.  Problem is, the power cord from my laptop came up about three inches short of the closest power strip.  Next time, I need to take “power supply” into account when I choose a seat in a new room.  I only used my laptop on breaks, so I never needed to plug in.  I was lucky.

The other thing that took some getting used to were the bathrooms.  Having worked in an office for the last year where everything is automated in the bathrooms, I looked like a dang fool the first day I stuck my hands under the faucet and waited for the red light to catch them and the water to start up.  I must have turned a couple shades of red when I realized I needed to turn the knobs next to the faucet to get any water.  UGH

Maybe that’s more than you all needed to know, but I believe in being honest with you. =)