ultrasupergenius’ journal

Movie Review: Looking to see a good flick? USG recomends ‘Millions‘, playing at the Fairfax cinema arts theatre, amoungst other places. Cute story about a young boy, money, and the inevitable of conversion of pounds to euros (an english endeavor by the maker of ‘Train Spotting’ and ‘28 days later’). Do not let the genres of his previous films convince you otherwise, this is a well done comedy/sub-drama without a lot of action - but with some good acting (and some not so great acting). The movie on the whole is uplifting, and has a charming quality about it. Four point Five Stars.

Quote of the Week: San Diego Mayor Dick Murphy

The Context: A $1.37 billion shortfall, perhaps much larger, in a pension fund that is under federal investigation; a possible $800 million deficit in the health care system for city retirees; and a $50 million hole in San Diego’s current budget. San Diego’s outside accountants won’t vouch for the accuracy of the city’s financial statements, and Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services has suspended the city’s credit rating.

The Quote: “A good leader knows when it is time to move on.”

Google has changed. Google has a product. And not like the april fools day thing - where they were sorta selling sodas… No, this is an enterprise solution type of dillio - with a hardware and software component. Check it out here. I am actually kind of bothered by this. Up to this point - google has been totally intangible. There was not a “google” that you could actually reach out and touch, at least not before entering that crazy cyberspace world. Google is a verb. I use it. I know what the connotative definition of that word is… but I have come to realize that there is a group of people out there that get to determine the denotative meaning of that verb. Someone can change the meaning of that word at their whim. This is not good. At least not that aspect of it. The name is cute. Google Mini. The product looks cool… I just have this really strange feeling that something that is really important to me is being ripped away.

My last name is Hobson. What does it mean? I have always assumed that it meant the son of Hob. Amazingly enough, I do not recall ever looking up the definition of what a Hob is… Just that fact in and of itself is blowing my mind right now. It took me over 30 years to get curious about what the heck my name said I was the son of. Crazy. So anyway - as you have probably guessed by now - I have done a little quick research on what a Hob is. This is what webster has to say:
Main Entry: 1hob
Pronunciation: 'häb
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English hobbe, from Hobbe, nickname for Robert
1 dialect English : HOBGOBLIN, ELF
2 : MISCHIEF, TROUBLE -- used with play and raise <always raising hob>
Was there ever any doubt? I am the son of trouble itself - the spawn of mischief. Heehee. How you like me now?

I don’t know if anyone else has been using Gmail - or if you have, if you have been noticing the advertisements that they place on the side of the emails… At first, I thought it was a bit creepy. I have to admit, I still do. Then I thought it was amusing - it pulled up a whole bunch of ads for handguns for an email thread with my brother, for example. Now… Crap - I just don’t know what to think. They are getting good. I think that more and more advertisers are getting in on this, and as a result, the ads are getting more targeted. I am sure that they really track and refine their results as well. A recent group email that a friend sent out about a vacation house on the Carolina shore spawned a number of links for vacation rentals on the Carolina shore. Very targeted, totally on point - and even if just for curiosity’s sake - I felt myself very tempted to follow the links and check out rates and whatnot. And what if that email was asking anyone for a reccomendation for a place to stay down there? Very useful. Recently, I mentioned going hiking in Shenandoah to someone, and there are ads for the Shenandoah Big Meadows Lodge, and some travel map/guide types of things for the shenandoah area. Very useful links for anyone planning on heading out to Shenandoah. The next time I am having trouble finding a certain product or service on google, I will just try emailing myself a description. Betcha that works. I just don’t know what to think about this. Creepy - Yes. Useful… I just don’t know. Is this good? Is this how it is supposed to be?

We encounter many landmarks on our journey into old age. Some of them are very clearly marked - you know that they are coming and you have plenty of time to get ready. Losing your baby teeth, for example. Birthdays are like mile post markers - inconsequential for the most part, except as a point of reference, but some mile markers have more meaning than others. I passed the 30 mile marker a while back - I could not help but reflect on that for a while. It is rather amazing to me that I have come this far so quickly.
Some of the landmarks hit you out of left field. I remember the first time that I noticed that old men had hair growing out of their ears… I was probably 5 or six at the time, and after closer inspection of my ears came to the conclusion that my ears would never spark that kind of growth. I remember being quite happy about that fact as well. Slowly but surely, the tiny little inconsequential hairs around my ears were building themselves up, and one day a while back, I noticed that the hairs had made significant progress, and were indeed on their way to becoming the ear hairs of an old man. They still have a long way to go - but at that moment I realized that I would become one of those old men who had to deal with their ear hair. Life goes on.
I just encountered one of the worst kind of landmarks. One that I never imagined that I would ever have to deal with. Nothing that I have seen, heard, or experienced in my life so far had led me to the belief that one day I would encounter my first grey nostril hair. But here it is. Proof positive that I am getting older. My nose hair is going grey.

…and so the journey continues.