eMarkLee

Just attended a friend’s week-long wedding Puerto Vallarta and must say this was an excellent time. It is always a great time when these things happen:

1. We push the groom into the pool on his wedding day.
2. Someone acts out Nacho Libre with a Risky Business dance on the balcony during the reception
3. Everyone else at the reception ends up in the pool at a certain point in the reception.
4. A dude in the wedding spends 36 hours in a Mexican jail.
5. Workmonkey gets Montezuma’s Revenge and does not speak or drink cervezas for an entire day.

I took a ton of pictures that I will be doing some post-production work on, so stay tuned for some of the better ones.

Here you go, to all you cat lovers:

I can just hear those “awwwww” sounds bouncing off the monitors everywhere. What is it about animals and children that incites this weird emotion? All of a sudden, this weird baby talk comes out. People start cooing and cawing when they see that animal. I’m not exaggerating, either. Every time Workmonkey saw a dog in San Francisco, he would literally get on his back like he was the dog himself and start talking gibberish. I had to beat that embarrassing behavior out of him. It’s called tough love.

I will admit I find cats hissing to be quite amusing, or when they do that disgruntled miao. Cats are cute for about 10 minutes until they try to eat your hand. They keep going until you throw them across the room. What is up with your own pet trying to eat your limbs?

Regardless, I do like cats. If you have a good recipe, let me know.

After trying the ZoneLabs Security Suite, I reverted back to the old school Norton Internet Security. I know Norton and McAfee are the weakest protection suites since they are the testbed for malware writers, I actually think Symantec has done a good job in the 2007 release in cutting down the system resources used and keeping good transparency for users that don’t want to be bothered with security unless there is an urgent need. ZoneLabs, on the other hand, will bother you on every request and sucks down resources like it’s going out of style.

I’m not sure if I’m any more secure with Norton installed, but at least it does not bother me. When I installed the security suite, the scan showed this beauty:

I’m glad AVG AV and Windows Firewall has kept me safe.

I’ve heard some people use the TrendMicro suite with success. They actually offer a free online scan, if you want to double check that your computer is not infected with malware. I’m going to stick with Norton for now as it’s quite a process to install and uninstall security suites. I was actually hoping for some free AV software at the RSA Conference, but all they gave me were pens and mints. Fdat.

Can U Believe This Guy Is Clippin Nails In Public Trans?

In Heroes, there’s a dude that can fly like Superman. Before I get into the topic, let me first interject the fact that the show is moving along at a snail’s pace. I need to see some X-Men battles go on soon or I will lose interest and go back to watching Date My Mom.

Levitation has been an interesting concept for a long time. We have achieved it with Electromagnetic Suspension in the maglev trains around the world. This requires a constant power source and is on a large mechanical object…but what about human levitation?

It looks like it has been achieved here.

Is that a lucky penny I see?

This gallery is very neat. As a fan of photography, you get sick of seeing macro shots of flowers and different shutter-speeds on the old waterfall. This takes it to a different level and to that, I appreciate and will attempt to copy. I just need to get a willing participant first….

It’s interesting to see where we are today for the Internet security arena. First, the MySpace kid, who was just basically playing a joke to add friends to his profile. Why not get more MySpace friends? Of course, for his exploits, he got a nice 3 year probation and 90 days of picking up trash at the local park. Sucks for him but nothing was malicious really in his hack.

Then there’s the case where a substitute teacher gets found guilt for showing pr0n to children. They never scanned the computer for any spyware/malware that displays popups. They never did any true forensics on the computer to see what was going on. Basically the children clicked on some links that may have installed spyware or allowed for popups. This could happen to anyone…ok, maybe not anyone, but could happen to any substitute teacher for sure. The problem here is who the hell is trying to prosecute a substitute teacher for pr0n popups?

Moral of the story: stop surfing for pr0n and get back to work….but if you surf for pr0n, make sure you’re blocking popups and spyware.

I am curiously awaiting the entertainment value of 300 and Spiderman 3, but the best flicks in 2007 will end up being these:

1st Runner Up:
28 Weeks Later, the sequel to the zombie thriller 28 Days Later. The first half of 28 days later was great. I can’t wait to see more like that.

Winner:
I first heard about Grind House on the Spike Scream Awards TV Show, where Tarantino and Rodriguez presented the teaser trailer. It had that Tarantino style, mixed with the Rodriquez gore. I have not seen a bad Tarantino film yet, so this one is worth waiting for. On top of that, one of the two pieces in the film is by the director of Sin City, one of the best and goriest horror flicks in recent memory. The trailer is done by Eli Roth, director of Hostel. Both are great flicks.

Prelim unofficial poster

Teaser:

All in all, this is shaping up to be a pretty exciting summer for movies that don’t suck like last year did.

Here are some images that make you go “oh shit”.