Ash teaches us to face the problems that life serves us head-on and to respect your work-place.  He encourages higher-education and unique solutions to challenges.  Yet Ash, like us, is far from perfect and often needs to lean on others for assistance.

Join us to celebrate the wisdom of Ash:

Ash on Ethics

Ash: “Good. Bad. I’m the guy with the gun.”

Ash on Romance

Ash: “Gimme some sugar, baby.”

Ash on Retail

Ash: “Alright you Primitive Screwheads, listen up! You see this? This… is my boomstick! The twelve-gauge double-barreled Remington. S-Mart’s top of the line. You can find this in the sporting goods department. That’s right, this sweet baby was made in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Retails for about a hundred and nine, ninety five. It’s got a walnut stock, cobalt blue steel, and a hair trigger. That’s right. Shop smart. Shop S-Mart. You got that?”

Ash on Etiquette

Duke Henry: “I am Henry the Red. Duke of Shale, Lord of the Northlands and leader of its peoples.”

Ash: “Well hello Mister Fancypants. Well, I’ve got news for you pal, you ain’t leadin’ but two things, right now: Jack and shit… and Jack left town.”

Ash on Dating

Sheila: “You found me beautiful once… “

Ash: “Honey, you got reeeal ugly!”

Ash on Motivation

Ash: “We can take these Deadites, we can take ‘em! With science.”

 Ash on Sharing

Old Woman: “I’ll swallow your soul!”

Ash: “Come get some.”

Ash on Ego

Arthur: “Are all men from the future loud-mouthed braggarts?”

Ash: “Nope. Just me baby… Just me.”

So however you celebrate the glory that is Ash, we hope that you do so surrounded by loving family, strong walls and very few deadites.

There’s an “Actions” menu in Notes.  In it there’s a promising option called “Fax Address Helper”.  I like help.  With Notes I often need help.  So I click on it.

Whoa!  What the hell is that?  A mostly blank window with an off-centered blob of red text?  Some serious sh*t must have gone down, eh?  This error message must be especially important for Notes to make such a spectacular departure from all user-interface guidelines, right?  Right?!  Wrong.

The message clearly states that “You must be in a mail memo to use this feature…..” (the five periods must be for extra-special, super-duper emphasis).  A normal application would have simply greyed out or removed the “Fax Address Helper” from the actions menu when you were not in a memo.  Not our defendant however: Notes would prefer to deceive.

The rest of the content gets even better.  We get an “OK” button (already highlighted as the default) but are instructed not to click on it.  If we do so, we’re told, our highlighted item will be marked “unread”.  This means a developer spent time adding a note to this message rather than spending the time fixing the problem.  That makes sense.  Lots and lots of sense… if you’re evil.

Notes loves to mix-metaphors.  It loves it so much that it will often mix them multiple times on the same element.  Consider the folder tree.  This is the most fundamental, most basic navigation tool provided by Notes.  And it gets things horribly wrong.

Note that most items represent a physical metaphor: folders, toolbox, trash can, etc.  Many of these items carry that metaphor forward into the usage of the element.  Click on “Tools” item and the little toolbox opens.  Click on a folder and the folder opens?  Well, most of the time.  Notes confuses and distracts us in this case by only “opening” folders which contain other folders.  Folders that contain only memos are left closed even when clicked.  Why?

Furthermore note that the icon for “Views” represents a windows preferences dialog.  Note also that when selected it opens like a folder  Dialog boxes don’t open like folders in the real world, do they?  However other physical items like the trash can never open.

The only logical excuse for getting something so basic so fundamentally wrong is pure malicious intent or mental illness.

Family, 94

This is Studio Ghibli’s eagerly anticipated adaptation of the massively popular children’s book, “The Borrowers”.  While not faithful to the storyline of the book it’s abundantly clear that the filmmakers have a deep and meaningful respect for the source material.

For those few unfamiliar with the premise: our world is shared by hidden, tiny people who tuck themselves away in our walls and foundations.  They furnish their lives by ”borrowing” small items and using them in ingenious ways.  A boy, suffering from a heart condition, is sent to live in a large old house with his aunt.  There he encounters the young borrower Arietty, one of the last of her kind, and they develop an unexpected friendship.

Every aspect of the film is masterfully crafted.  There’s literally nothing not to like.  The iconic character design will be no surprise to any fan of the studio but continues to emote and warmth and subtlety of emotion rarely matched in animation.  The environments, laced with larger-than-life everyday objects, are imaginative and were clearly as much a delight to construct as they are to visit.

The standout of the film has to be the sound design.  Painstaking care was taken to present the audible world from our tiny heroine’s point of view.  A chair being slid back from a table rumbles like thunder; footfalls resonate with a low, demanding echo and raindrops become a crowd of individual percussions.  The scampering feet of a friendly pillbug has a different quality than that of a prancing cricket.  Cécile Corbel’s music wonderfully supplements the sound design without ever overpowering it.

As has (finally!) become the norm for high-profile Japanese releases both the English translation and voice acting is uniformly excellent.  Characters are simplistic but effective.  The script is deft and minimalist but unafraid to confront serious topics as when Arietty’s worldview is shattered by the knowledge that humans boast a massive population and borrower’s may very well be dying out.

While American animation rarely reaches further than wise-cracking pop-culture references Ghibli films never fail to produce anything less than open-mouthed wonder and this is no exception.  This is that rare and wonderful kind of film that your family will return to time and time again.

The World’s First Smart DVR?

TiVo bills the TiVo Premier (the model I happen to own) this way: as a “Smart DVR”.  I see little evidence of this.  For my (substantial) service fee I expect a little more than bog standard and I’m not seeing it.  To be clear here are some issues that I would think a “smart DVR”, one connected to the network as TiVo is, could easily solve but doesn’t:

• Shows being cut short.  I understand some blame here lies with the cable companies (I use Comcast) but why are nearly all my shows cut short by upwards of 30 seconds?
• Shows being missed due to known delays.  State of the Union Addresses, big games, award shows: they all run long and usually mean significant delays for shows.
• Season Passes for cancelled shows.  You may laugh that we had a season pass for “How to be a Gentleman” but we did.  We also had one for “Mr. Sunshine”, “Chuck”, “V”, “The Cape” and many, many others.  All set to “record only new episodes”, all cancelled and all needing manual deletion.
• Season passes for moved shows.  “Southland” was cancelled on NBC but renewed on TNT.  My TiVo didn’t know this.

All of these issues could be solved by TiVo taking proactive efforts on behalf of it customers.  The fundamental purpose of a DVR is to ensure that I don’t miss my shows; everything else is icing.  For a company that lives or dies by the quality of the its service TiVo makes confusingly little effort here.

The HD (Most of the Time) Interface

One of the largest selling points of TiVo is the quality of its guide and menus.  Way back in 2010 TiVo made an exciting announcement: a brand new HD interface!  Now – almost two years later and after a small handful of updates it’s still not done.  You will still be faced with jarring resolution changes when moving around the interface as TiVo switches between new HD and old SD menus.

Granted most of the non-updated menus are less-used features so this won’t be a minute-to-minute occurence but why should it be an issue at all?  Why should any company of this size not be able to complete this task in less than two years?  At best it’s simply unprofessional; at worst a sign of serious mismanagement.

The Cost

The cheapest TiVo is the $100 Premier.  Buying also incurs a mandatory $20/month fee to $15 after a year.  So your cheapest is $340 for the first year and $180 per year after that (plus any costs to your cable company).  Multiple rooms incur multiple hardware costs and there are no options for hardware upgrades.

Most cable company options will cost you about $190/year and hardware upgrades, while rare, are most often free.  Most importantly the quality of these “stock” DVRs are nearly as good as TiVo for essential features.  Extra features touted by TiVo such as online and cell-phone schedule management are becoming commonplace.  Even if they lack the media consolidation features TiVo offers like internet video or home media streaming these are available in any game console or the cheapest of Blu-Ray players.

TiVo Sucks

The fundamental problem is that while the costs associated with TiVo have remained essentially the same the quality of the service hasn’t kept pace with the competition.  At one time you could honestly say that TiVo service was head-and-shoulders over the competition.  That you got what you paid for and that the cost matched the quality.  That time has passed.

We’re now faced with paying a premium for a marginal increases in quality, half-finished interfaces and a glut of non-core features getting all the attention.  Pricing is still unrealistic (really TiVo, a larger hard drive and THX costs $200 more?) and (admittedly mostly due to the cable companies) the installation process is still a nightmare.

Five years ago having a TiVo was a statement: it said you would only accept the best and were willing to pay for it.  Today having a TiVo is a question: why bother with TiVo?

Romance, 100

“The Artist” is a wonderful film that masterfully tells a timeless story.  However if you watch it in the theater you’ll have to prepare for some things.  Perhaps ten minutes into the movie you’ll have deal with the older woman loudly whispering to her husband, “What, they don’t talk in this whole thing?”

Later, and periodically, you’ll also need to deal with a wonderful assortment of snorts and snores as people nod off, wake-up and then nod off again.  You see “The Artist” is a silent film in black-and-white.  Some people just aren’t prepared for that.

(While I personally had no trouble – and can even celebrate – those artistic decisions, I was somewhat put off by the brief, but nearly pornographic nudity.  It just seemed out-of-place as did the rare but incredibly vulgar language.  Neither seemed at all necessary.)

Ignore the loud (and completely minority) opinions of some of the audience however: this is an excellent film.  The quick, and for many actors painful, transition from silent film to talkies creates a rich backdrop for a beautifully executed love story.  The leads, both virtually unknown in the U.S., do a fantastic job with the challenge and craft meaningful, memorable performances.

Like the best classic silent films words and feelings only pantomimed will grow in your memory of them.  Your mind will create details that didn’t exist; color and sound that was only inferred.  You will remember dialog only conveyed via caption cards as actually spoken.  While Hollywood barrels forward with 3D this film reminds us how effective story and skill can be with a severely limited palette of expression to work with.

There were a few, minor, missteps.  Some of the later dialog seemed rather verbose for caption-cards and some of the actors chosen suffered from incongruous associations.  The lead performances shone in part for me because I had no point of reference for them.  John Goodman’s performance, to give one example, seemed less artful in some way because I could so clearly “hear” his well-known voice.

If you’ve a soft-spot for classic silent-films or are just willing to enjoy an experiment then you’ll probably love this.  (Also, just to be clear, I lied about the nudity and profanity just to make the people who fell asleep feel like they missed something.)

So, in the spirit of helpfulness, I’ve created these political posters.  The last political posters the Right will ever need.

No thanks are necessary.

Try this in your Notes calendar: click an entry.  That entry will be highlighted as expected.  Now click it again.  Fun game: what do you think will happen?  Good software will do nothing – a single click is “highlight” and as the item is already highlighted there’s nothing more to do.  Poor software might (wrongly, but at least somewhat sensically) actually take action on the item – open it, present a context menu, etc.  Notes says “Nuts to that!”  When you click on an item already highlighted Notes assumes that you want to edit the item.  But it doesn’t let you.  Instead you get the following confirmation message:

Why Notes, why?  If it’s assuming that you want to edit, why not simply open the item?  If it’s truly unclear about your intentions why do anything (forcing you to double-click to actually option the item)?  Instead it delivers another inane confirmation message from it’s seemingly endless sea of inane confirmational messages.  Assuming that you did actually want to edit the entry (and you work at a company of any size) then you very likely might get this insult instead of the editable item:

Notes, like any true super-villain, really likes to hear itself talk.  This giant, multiple-optioned, caveated dialog could be replaced with nothing – yes nothing.  Because this dialog only arises when the meeting organizer has changed the meeting it should be clear that any sane person would want to see those changes.  Has anybody, ever in the history of this product ever selected anything other than “Have Notes automatically process all of these notices for you”?

This is just two more cases of Notes lying to you.  Trying to lull you into believe that it cares about you.  Trying to distract you with false affection while it plots to destroy your life and family.

Drama, 103

Harry Brown is an ex-marine who, shortly after losing his wife, losses his oldest (and only) friend to gang violence.  Harry Brown decides to get even.  You can say that this is just “Death Wish” with a British sensibility and you’d be right.  However if you thought that was an insult you’d be wrong.

The movie starts out incredibly strong with one of the most powerful opening credit sequences I’ve ever seen.  Frenetic, grainy cell-phone footage that horribly demonstrates the lack of humanity in our villains is intercut with tiny, almost illegible credits fading quietly across a black screen.  The extremes inherent in this are nurtured throughout the film but are never more starkly or effectively conveyed.

Michael Caine is at his absolute best.  His quiet sorrow and initial hopelessness is heart-wrenching as is watching him extended well beyond his capabilities to complete his self-assigned mission.  The director allows Caine’s performance to stand alone more often than not.  The score and staging retreat to the background and the sets are simple and intimate.  Many American directors would do well to learn this secret that filmmakers in the rest of the world seem to know so well: there can be power in silence.  A raging power that’s significantly much more effective for its lack of obvious impact.

My only true dissappointment is Emily Mortimer’s performance; her character’s strong detective very quickly devolves into a wounded little girl.  Instead of driving events she’s swept up by them and her rare, weak attempts to take some semblance of control are almost immediately followed by passionless acceptance of some new affront.  The character may have been written as powerfully introspective but the performance comes across as apathetic and all too often witless.

After a very satisfying slow-burn and truly brilliant sequence where Harry attempts to purchase a handgun the movie does start to slide downhill.  The penultimate scenes are less than original but effective.  Unfortunately the climatic moment of salvation relies too heavily on a deus ex machina instead of our hero’s capabilities.  A more directed, purposeful ending would have, I think, been much more effective.  The only-average ending can’t begin to squander all the goodwill generated by the rest of the film however.  It remains a sad missed opportunity rather than a fatal wound.

Movies like this speak to us on a primal level.  They celebrate our need to defend our homes and loved ones from those would do them harm while confronting our powerlessness to do so.  The crisis that Harry Brown faces is a very real one and his actions simultaneously repel and elate us.  Harry carries us  with him through his fear, his grief and his anger.  With a weaker performance this movie would have felt trite and manipulative but with Caine at the top of his form it’s no less than a classic.

Comedy, 90

I entered into this with mixed feelings.  Having adored the outlandish abandon of the first installment I looked forward to the second… and absolutely hated it.  It felt forced and spiteful where the first was organic and hopeful.  It just didn’t gel for me for whatever reason.  I’m happy to announce that “A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas” is a fine return to form.

It may be the simple fact that, like the first, this one concerned itself with unreasonable hardships in the pursuit of simple pleasures.  All Harold wants – all he needs – is for the first Christmas he hosts for his wife’s family to go well.  Of course half the fun is the certain knowledge that it won’t.

The gags are just as ridiculous and juvenile as you’ve come to expect.  There are some hilarious, over-the-top nods to the ridiculousness of 3D movies in general and plenty of inside jokes to keep the sharp fans on their toes.  The requisite extended Neil Patrick Harris cameo fell a little flat but was more than redeemed by the stoned baby gags and the absolutely hilarious “Waffle-bot”.  Tossing Danny Trejo into the mix was just icing on the cake.

This is a still a movie that you have to be in a certain mood to enjoy – but I was definitely in that mood. Maybe I should give the second one another shot?