Anyone that can prop themselves up next to a computer and can formulate an opinion has an entertainment website. And of that anyone, most wait until the end of summer to give out awards for the summer movies. Not I!

In the spirit of being above the average, I’ve devised a new tradition to break next year . . . The (Mid-Summer) Summer Movie Awards! Also, since I think boring awards like “Best Actor” and “Best Movie” are more than covered by that aforementioned “Anyone,” I’ve opted to make my own awards!

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Spoilers, Ahoy! If you care about that sort of thing!

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a fun filled adventure movie that many will love. The “Big Damn Ants” scene was incredible, as was every action sequence in the movie. The comedy was there, especially when Indy insisted they call a snake a rope before he would grab onto it. However, there are a few things that set it apart from the other movies in the series, in a bad way.
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We all love Facebook. Well, at least those of us that recognize Myspace as the new Friendster.  The Ex-Google employees that deferred there can’t be wrong! Before another social network takes Facebook’s crown as the king of all social networks, it is important to list the objective archetypes of people found there. This sort of thing is typically known as a Digg-fishing type post, but I figured if I don’t do it, who will?
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I’ve been messing around with Inkscape, trying to get used to it. Who needs Fireworks anymore?

If you don’t know who this is . . . visit this

Did a rendering of Mario in my comic style, which may or may not be used in the future :)

Also check out my Twitter (updated daily): http://www.twitter.com/tommark

Late!

I was going to do more with this feature, but really, all you want to see are pictures and results. Yeah, I went with Vista! Since Microsoft gives away Ultimate edition like water (if you know where to look*), why the heck not?

*I got mine going the Windows Feedback Panel route, but I also got a copy from going to the “Hero’s Happen Here” conference (ah, the perks of being a developer :D).

The Photos:

The Specs:

Operating System: Windows Vista Ultimate Service Pack 1
Case: Antec Solo Black/Silver Steel
Motherboard: ASUSTeK Computer INC. CROSSHAIR
Processor: 3.20 gigahertz AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 6400+ (Black Edition)
Hard Drive: Seagate ST350063 SCSI HDD (500.11 GB)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-S183L SCSI CD/DVDW
Memory: 2GB X2 (4GB total) of Patriot DDR2 RAM
Graphics: ASUS EN8600GTS SILENT

The Specs:

Operating System: Windows Vista Ultimate Service Pack 1
Case: Antec Solo Black/Silver Steel
Motherboard: ASUSTeK Computer INC. CROSSHAIR
Processor: 3.20 gigahertz AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 6400+ (Black Edition)
Hard Drive: Seagate ST350063 SCSI HDD (500.11 GB)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-S183L SCSI CD/DVDW
Memory: 2GB X2 (4GB total) of Patriot DDR2 RAM
Graphics: ASUS EN8600GTS SILENT

This house might look familiar to some people who have known me, and my work, for sometime . . .

Not as ugly of a couch as I’d have hoped . . .

This all seems somewhat familiar . . .

Top Down View

This is not to say that I am working on reviving a certain something, and not to say I am not. :)

Enjoy!

One of my specialty areas at work is being a MAPI programmer, I dwell in the Outlook/PST/MSG state of mind most of the time. I’ve been in this state for quite some time. Working for an eDiscovery company, I’m not doing the typical “I want to send email, and only send email” programming. I need to extract existing emails (and any metadata) as evidence. So I created an OO interface to MAPI, using C# and MAPI33, that does just that without having to jack around with the often feisty Outlook. This was no easy task, but it’s done and in use.

Now I’ve been presented with a new challenge, the S/MIME format. S/MIME is a commonly used format in order to encrypt and digitally sign email. Outlook is one of many mail clients that can send and interpret these email files. Although technically they are closer to the MIME format (duh) that Outlook Express uses.

We’ll see if this is possible. hmmmmmm

So I went to the gym this morning. I pay so much for membership, I figure I might want to make it a routine to go. Every Tuesday and Thursday. Maybe. This time for sure.

I had to start treating my body better. It took health problems to wake me up and realize that. It took Meghan’s strong will to insist that I start eating salads more often, considering I never had one until a few weeks ago. So I went from zero to one for most lunches these days. I cut most of the dairy out of my diet, which used to consist of 90%. So yeah, my old motto, “If it don’t have cheese, to hell with it” had to go. That’s trademarked by the way . . . just kidding, that would cost too much.

I also cut coffee from my diet. Yeah, you heard me, coffee. Today, however, I tried a 5-hour energy and I’ve been bouncing off the walls, I’m recoded 5 applications, and painted a very strikingly accurate recreation of the Mona Lisa. Haha! Weeeeeeee! This stuff evidently has no crash associated with the high. We’ll see.

Doh! Got to go, catch you later!

Morning musings from the man that has no time for his blog.

You know, for a very technical person that works on some heavy grade, highly dynamic programs, I really don’t talk about it much here. Maybe I like to keep church and state separate (in this case “Job Life” and “Free Time Life”). Maybe it’s because once I find a solution to a common programming problem, I’m just too pooped to write it out in detail. (more…)