Weblog

Retro Gaming on Real Backgrounds

Some very cool images of old NES games against real backgrounds. The Excite Bike one is my personal favorite.

via fubiz.net

TR2N

Even though I can’t get to the theater much anymore due to having too many kids, I still try to keep up on movie news using sites like joblo.com and general news sites with a movie section.

The San Diego comic con just happened, and a lot of footage from upcoming movies was shown. One of the screenings was footage of a potential Tron 2. Not too many movies get me excited, but a bootleg video of the trailer popped up online and all I can say is just the few minutes I saw had me drooling to see the rest.

I loved the original Tron growing up, and can’t remember just how many times I’ve seen it. The trailer for the second looks even more awesome as the first… and Jeff Bridges is back which makes the movie about 100 fold better already.

About 10 years ago, I went to a Spike and Mike’s animation festival thing, and a couple of the original TRON special effects guys were there to speak (I think it was Steven Lisberger, but can’t remember). Anyhow, the one question they answered which has stuck in my head since, was a fan asked how it was watching the computer generated lightcycle scenes come to life during the movie making process. I remember he responded by saying that he didn’t see any of the effects until they were screening the actual film. Before that, all he had seen was lines of code that would become the lightcycles and TRON effects on film. They were essentially working blind through the entire CGI process - until it was on the actual film on a big screen.

That answer blew the entire crowd away, and even then people were asking about a sequel. “Maybe, we hope so” is all we got in return. Well, *maybe* that wish will come true here in the next year or so. If not after seeing this footage; I’m headed down to Disney to riot on their front lawn.

It’s been a year since I’ve seen a ghost

Not many people know of this, but over a year ago, I was invited to fly to an old historical landmark in Florida and look for ghosts. I was invited by my friend Michale to his buddy’s house; “The Reid House” in Fort Meade, Florida.

I got to thinking about the trip again due to stumbling over the investigation report online. I had no idea it had been a year already. Time sure does fly.

The Reid House

We were to be part of a “ghost tracking” group that was to arrive the following day to investigate the house and see if it was in fact haunted. They brought along some of the coolest gear I’d ever seen; IR cameras and equipment, EVP mics and cabling, and some other weird equipment that I still don’t know what they do. And that doesn’t count all of the camera and recording gear Michale and I brought along as well. Pretty soon, the house was covered in cameras and mics, and from the kitchen (HQ) you could tell what was happening everywhere in the house at once.

The investigation team was a pretty cool bunch. They all were somewhat local and stayed a night at the house to record everything. We didn’t see anything happen in the house, but sure got some weird events and heard some odd stuff. One kind of freakish thing that happened though, was at multiple times the batteries in our gear would be completely drained. It didn’t matter what brand or type, but I remember putting new batteries in my flash and they didn’t work. We tried them in other gear and they were dead. Michale and the team had the same trouble with batteries they had just bought not working in some of their own gear. Very odd.

playing with the IR cameras.

The night before the ghost investigation team showed up was pretty eventful. We had our own scare ourselves. Michale, his wife and good friend Jason were all sleeping upstairs. I slept downstairs on the floor determined to see a ghost. I awoke to all 3 of them screaming and yelling and them all rushing down the creaky old stairs as fast as possible. Turns out, they saw or felt something spinning in the air above them and it woke them all up at the same moment. That room I think is now officially dubbed the “Scream Room.” I remember all of us trying to figure out if we should bolt and grab a hotel rather than stay there that night. But, we decided to stay and see what was going on. After that, I grabbed my sleeping bag and we all crashed in the Scream Room. Didn’t see or hear anything after that. I think the ghosts just didn’t like me much.

Jason standing in the Scream Room post scream.

The haunted stairway.

Seeing stuff like this in the attic sure made us feel safer, lemme tell ya…

Some background history on the house (via The Fort Meade Leader)
Readers will remember the carriage stone, now located at the Fort Meade Historic Museum, came from in front of Wolpin’s house and was original to the Reid family.

It was one of the last two surviving carriage stones in Polk County and had been in place for more than 100 years.

The Reid house is a historic frame vernacular home, built between 1899-1914. It was built over another structure sometime in the late 1880s, as the lot appears in an 1880’s survey.

The lot, which compromises Orange Ave. and Oak St., was part of the Jack Robeson addition, which the house sits on today.

It was originally owned by Reverend William James Reid (1858-1931) and Stella C. Reid (1869-1954) from Hanceville, Ala. Mr. Reid was a minister for the “North Alabama Conference Methodist Church South.”

The home was later owned by his son Claude ‘Cauntess’ Reid (1894-1976), who lived in the house until his death in 1976. After Claude’s death, the home was left in the possession of his sister Carrie B. Reid (1898-2001).

The home was then sold to the Harpe Family sometime around 1985.

The Reid House was featured in the film “Judgement” starring Blythe Danner, Keith Carradine, Jack Warden and David Strathairn. HBO refurbished the house and added a doorway between the master bedroom and the room next door, for which they used to film some of the scenes in the movie.

The home was restored sometime between 1995-2004 when it was sold.

The home was then purchased by the Wolpins who are in the process of restoring and placing it on the National Register of Historic Places.

I’m starting to give the entire theory of reincarnation another thought…

Somehow this kid got Johnny Cash’s voice… spooky and exciting all in one go.

His name is Vince Mira and he’s 15 years old. One musician I will seriously be keeping an eye on throughout his career. Extremely impressive.

On Good Morning America

The write up from CDBaby:
VINCE MIRA
Country music’s newest young star’s rise to fame has captivated America. Born in Los Angles, California and raised in San Antonio, Texas the young singer/songwriter Vince Mira, was discovered by entertainment producer Chris Snell (owner of Famous Seattle night club, Can Can) while playing for tips in Seattle’s Pike Place Market. He is now on his way to becoming a household name. His first album was produced by John Carter Cash (Johnny Cash and June Carter’s only son) and recorded at the Cash Cabin (built by Johnny Cash) in Nashville, Tennessee. Prior to the completion of recording “Cash Cabin Sessions” the Vince Mira buzz began to spread followed by a media frenzy. First featured on KOMO News in Seattle, Washington, KOMO’s affiliate, Good Morning America, picked up the story immediately… 2 weeks later Vince captured the nation with a breathtaking live performance in front of over 5 million viewers. Subsequently, the Ellen DeGeneres Show aired his Good Morning America clip where Ellen personally invited Vince to the Ellen Show during their national broadcast the same day… two weeks later Vince received a standing ovation on the show while performing in front of millions of viewers during yet another outstanding live performance. Mr. Mira’s other television appearances include Northwest Afternoon and Univision (KOMO’s Spanish affiliate); as well as features in print media outlets such as Seattle Sound Magazine, Seattle Times, Seattle Weekly, and many others. He recently recorded with Stone Gossard of Pearl Jam for Stone’s upcoming “Hank Williams Tribute” CD.

His site
Vince Mira at myspace

Just had to share…

This is a great idea for a shower curtain:

I might have to pick me up one.

Wanted! CSS/HTML Freelancers ASAP

Hey everyone, at my day job; adchemy.com we’re in dire need of some freelance web designers/static CSS/HTML personnel. Basically, my team and I are overwhelmed and need some ongoing help. If interested, please email me at evan [at] evaneckard.com or evan [at] adchemy.com.

We would need primarily CSS/HTML help, but also could use some fresh eyes and design ideas. Adchemy has been around for 3+ years, and is a startup located in Redwood City, Ca. We’re primarily in the lead generation business using analytics and high science to create top-preforming designs. That’s just scratching the surface. We’ll really need help for the lead generation side as well as another side of the business which I have to keep my lips sealed about that right now.

So if interested, please forward rates, contact info and portfolio, and we can get moving. I appreciate it!

Adsense Woes

A few weeks ago, I got a rather blunt email from Google telling me that they had shut down my Adsense account for fraudulent clicks and returned all advertiser money earned. At first I thought they had sent the email to the wrong person, since over the past 3 years, I’ve only made not much more than $100 from the account. Sure enough, I went to login and got a big fat denied message and a link to a FAQ on why my account was shut down. I was around $20 shy of another payment that would have been nice.

Just great I thought. Why in the world would Google think a little tiny web guy like me would have bad clicks? I thought about it for a few, and realized that I’ve never clicked on my own ads or encouraged others to do so. So why did Google turn me off?

When I went to the FAQ page to figure this out, I saw a link to a form where you could request that your account be reactivated. They ask all the regular questions like name and account ID and whatnot, but towards the end, there are a couple fields to list why you think your account may have been turned off and then another field to paste any server logs to weird visitor activity which may have caused it.

Without a flinch I started to look through all of my visitor logs, and sure enough for one day in February, someone pinged my site hundreds of times trying to do a massive save of one of my sites with Adsense on it. This had to be the problem I thought and quickly copied some of the log events and explained my case into the Adsense form. After submitting, I was messaged that I would hear a reply within 48 hours.

After a week and a couple days, and another form submit stating my claim, I get an email from Google saying that they were sorry for the inconvenience and that my account has been turned back on. Awesome I thought. They mentioned the ads might take a few hours to re-appear (which wasn’t the case, they were already back on when I checked) and asked that I read through another FAQ on how to protect my ads in the future.

I check my sites and the ads are back, so I then log into my account to read this FAQ and sure enough, my balance is now zero. They cleaned the entire account out. I couldn’t believe it. They knew they messed up, and still took all the money I had earned since the first (and last) payment.

I couldn’t believe it. I’ve emailed them a couple times since asking what is going on. If they want to reimburse their advertisers for bad clicks, I’m all for it - but only for that one day in February that caused it. If there was another problem, take 5 whole minutes and give me some sort of explanation.

So my ads are back on, I’m back to square one, and Google won’t get back. I wonder if Adsense is even worth the trouble. They sure aren’t paying enough for the headache they’ve caused and a little more insight would be nice.

If I don’t hear back within the next week, I’m deleting the account and stripping the ads. Adsense just isn’t worth it.

Update
So nearly 3 weeks after posting this entry, and about a dozen emails to google, I finally got my balance back to what it was. I literally kept resending the same email asking what happened to my balance every 3 days or so up until a few days ago. On the last email sent, I prefaced the email with the question if I needed to drive down to Shoreline Drive and start pestering the adsense team myself to get some sort of an answer.

After that email, I got a short reply, and the balance went back to what it was before. Lesson learned: 48 hours to google support really means about 4 weeks.

Oh, and just to top it off, my page rank dropped a point after my balance came back. Awesome.

DinPattern update

I just put a few new patterns up at DinPattern. “Dirty Vintage” looks like rundown 70’s wallpaper with some nice grungy orange hues. “Queen’s Quilt” is a subtle, royal style pattern. And finally “Veerle!” which is a scale-style pattern based on Veerle Pieter’s color palette of her blog.

Please cruise by and let me know what you think!

Once

There are few times where I recommend a movie to others. The last movies I got a real kick out of was Stardust and Bourne Ultimatum. But a few nights ago I saw a movie, and heard a soundtrack that blew everything out of the water.

Once.

I don’t even know where to begin. “Once” is a modern musical - a story of two musicians pushing each other to be greater and (almost) falling in love in the process. It’s a story of a guy (that’s the credit) and a girl that randomly run into each other in Ireland somewheres. The guy has broken up with a girl a year back, and the girl is an immigrant from the Czech republic. Both being musicians, they start to play together and dig deeper into each other’s lives unintentionally. They create a record, push each other to be better musicians and people, and make some of the best music I’ve ever heard.

The director knew that the story revolved so much around the music that he insisted the actors be real musicians rather than actors that could sorta sing and appear like they could play and instrument. The film is also shot in an almost documentary style - which makes the film feel all the more real. In fact, on the DVD extras, the director and actors mention they have been asked about the character’s current lives - assuming they’re real.

I think the main reason I liked this movie so much, was simply the male lead Glen Hansard. This guy is one of the most talented individuals I have ever seen. The emotion that comes through his voice and body language during a song is amazing. I really have no idea why he doesn’t have the same fame as a band such as Coldplay or the Verve, because he is as talented as they get.

After seeing Once, I don’t think I can watch any other music-centric movie without thinking “Once is better.” On a side note, I’m right now watching “Across the Universe” but contemplating turning it off because Once just blows all of these movies out of the water.

Stardust and Ultimatum

It’s been quite some time since I watched any movie worth writing about. Well, in one week I’ve seen two DVDs that were a couple of the best flics I’ve seen in ages. “Stardust” and “Bourne Ultimatum.”

Jason Bourne has always been a favrorite character of mine, and the latest in the series “Bourne Ultimatum” is not only the best, but one of the best action flics I’ve seen in a long, long time. Ultimatum is so well done, it’s ridiculous. Every scene keeps you glued to the film - it’s such a completely fresh take on spy style movies, it’s what the next Bond movie should seriously strive for. The character of Bourne himself has evolved so much that it makes the pace of the film so much quicker; but completely for the better. I don’t think there was any spot in the movie where events died-down in a sense. YOU NEED TO SEE THIS MOVIE.

Just tonight, I watched another flic that I had heard of when it was in theatres, but didn’t think much of it. I so wish I had sean this movie in theatres now! “Stardust” is an incredibly well-written, well-directed, acted, entertaining movie that I just couldn’t pull away from. Every actor in the movie is so engaging with their characters that you can’t move from your seat. Claire Danes, DeNiro, Charlie Cox, Jason Flemyng, Michelle Pfeiffer, David Kelly and the rest of the cast really bring a huge amount of life to this movie. On top of it being so well-written and done, the producers and directors brought in the perfect cast for this movie. If you don’t see any other movie in 2007 or 2008; you HAVE to watch this flic. Written by the master himself; Neil Gaiman (MirrorMask, The Sandman, Death: The High Cost Of Living, Mr. Punch), it’s an incredibly well-done movie. CHECK IT OUT NOW!