Kimputer's Weblog

This is UPN’s first legal drama entry headlined by actor/producer Taye Diggs. The simple outline is an upperclass lawyer (and a party-hopper at night), “inherits” a ten month old cousin, a baby girl. The following stories cover parenthood and dating (predictable fiascos) mixed with a new law suit every week. It’s not high profile writing, beneath the good looks and superficial glitter, the drama is simmering at best, and the humor isn’t that sophisticated either. Stories follow a pretty strict line, and it’s quite predictable. For now, it’s on the edge of repeating the same themes too often, and the cases aren’t too intricate. While it’s not really must-see TV, it’s an able time-filler.

A stellar cast pulls off a mediocre performance in this sixties remake. It’s not really the actors fault, the director, writer and producers are really to blame. A farfetched story to begin with, is designed in a such a revealing way, 95% of your guess work will be shown to be correct later on. Not only that, story threads are are resolved sloppily, something you’d better steer clear off with an unbelievable story as this one. Type casting all the characters, even in the tiniest roles, is the next mistake, and that means, no suprises to be found. Then comes character interaction, another design gone awry. It feels like either a lot of scenes have been cut up, or the character just don’t behave really normal. In any case, it’s noticable.
And last but not least, Jonathan Demme delivered some nice character driven movies in the past (Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia), but this event driven movie isn’t worth mentioning at all. This movie would’ve probably been best served as a direct-to-video.6-.

With the previous post, you might actually think I do nothing else than watching TV. But keeping a weblog spam-free is actually an intense task. So here’s something for the more tech-savvy:

How to keep your WordPress Weblog Spam-free

Some of you might have seen one or two spam messages (about online poker and about cheap medicine) in the comments, which mostly happens overnight, and I don’t have time to delete it. It’s quite simple really, just one well directed URL is enough. It’s actually so easy, millions of zombie PC’s roaming the internet (usually for email spam) have this routine built-in nowadays.
The first step of course, would be to deny the IP addresses access to your webserver. This is done through the .htaccess file (using Apache of course). Till now, it’s kept quite short.
Then came yesterday. I already saw a small increase in this type of abuse, but had to leave for the movies. When I came home, I was bombarded with no less than 620 of these messages. With the attack continuing, filling the .htaccess would prove time consuming and in the end, probably worthless.
On to analyzing the exact spam messages and their methods it is (assuming I’m smarter than a botnet level spam engine):
– This new spam engine is quite effective. It distributes the post commands to other zombie PC’s, and each will post a spam message on another post, nicely increasing from 1 to, in my case, 600+)
– uniform posting reveals: 1. no http referrer 2. same url 3. spam contains URL
Actually, this is all I need to effectively block the messages. While using only one of the above would be enough, I built in all three.
1. build in code where the posting will stop and give an error message if the referrer is empty (use getenv(“HTTP_REFERER”))
2. rename the post.php file, and edit the originating (popup.php) to redirect to the renamed file. The static bots will keep hammering on the original post file which does not exist anymore.
3. build in code where the posting will stop and give an error message if the comment contains “http” (use strpos($comment, ‘http’))

By now, it’s already 2.00 am, but with a grin on my face I see all the return error messages fly by. Waiting for the next leap of intelligence of the bots then. (Actually, 3 leaps, which will probably take some time)
Who says I can’t teach you anything ?

With some 6 new episodes in my download queue for just today, I figured I may benefit from finding out what exactly constitutes as a TV addiction. First, here’s my current schedule:

Sure hits:
Jack and Bobby
Lost
South Park
Battlestar Galactica
CSI
Smallville
Everwood

Try-out bench (new series):
Boston Legal
Veronica Mars
Kevin Hill

Dangerzone (weak writing or due to repetitiveness repetitiveness):
CSI:NY
NCIS
Star Trek: Enterprise
Joey
Father of the Pride

Axed (either cancelled by the network or dismissed by me):
Medical Investigation
Last Comic Standing
Hawaii
Clubhouse
Drawn Together

Waiting for a 2005 continuation:
24
Tru Calling
Alias
The Dead Zone

Try-out bench, Waiting for a 2005 premiere:
Johnny Zero
Numbers
Blind Justice
Ricochet
The Office (NBC version)

As you can see, it’s pretty crowded, and I didn’t even include the occasional late night show (Jay or Conan or Jon).

So on to the exact definition. Well, I don’t have one. I stumbled upon this article, and then I stopped. It’s a pretty interesting read, and an excerpt goes like this:
those who are committed to their work cannot become addicts to television
Well, that satisfied my curiosity. Off to watch some more TV it is.

Rate 1 (sucks) to 5 (cool). Only rate the latest pictures, otherwise I can’t keep track of the average.

Total: 651 out of 199 votes > Average is: 3.271

Who designs a notebook with a keyboard that lacks the Windows Key ???? (It’s spells sumding like Idiotic Brainless Mobile-pc-wannabee) C’mooon, it’s been around for 9 years already, don’t tell me some engineer just forgot ?

It was like a proto-after-nightmare. You know I didn’t stay up for this. So I got up in the morning, and with half closed eyes I surf to cnn.com. Then I see this:

My heart sinks in, and I cursed half of all the US citizens. Four more years of that stammering unprepared pausing moron, with his silly 4th grade jokes.
I found out a bit later there’s still one more day to go before the counts are in. Anywayz, TOLDYASO you didn’t have to stay up all night for excitement !

I always had a predisposition to liking almost all series coming from David E. Kelley, and this show proves again he’s able to create something new and fresh time and again. This new show is a mix of the darkness of The Practice and the lightness of Ally McBeal. Lead by two loose cannon characters (William Shatner and James Spader, both Emmy winners for their previous year on The Practice) the rest of the roster is filled with more normal people. For now this weird mix works just fine and guest spots are top notch. But without any real depth, it might enter the danger zone in a few weeks.

A strange one, but it will be explained later.

1. Can you distinguish a Canadian accent if your life depended on it ?

2. Try it. Pick the correct one out of these short mp3’s 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

3. Watching which movie would’ve taught you this trick ?

This icon will indicate if I have answered the K-uestions yet

I hear it all around me. People are going to stay up tomorrow to watch the live telecasts of the Presidential Election. Somehow, hours of counting votes, and assigning states to one or the other is exciting. And it’s not just late, with the time difference between the US and Europe, it’s practically an all-nighter.
Well, I really need my sleep, so I’ll just read the most objective poll to date again here, and guess I’ll find out in the morning anyways.
Oh, and for those who stayed up, I’ll be laughing my ass off if it’s gonna be a recount.

The Grudge and Halloween make a nice pair. The low budget horror flick (produced by Sam Raimi) is still on top with $22.4 million.
At number 2, Oscar buzz is loud for Jamie Foxx’s performance as Ray Charles in the bio called simply, well, Ray.
Another well-timed low budget horror is Saw at number 3 with $17.4 million. Oldies fill the rest of the top 5. Shark Tale at 4 with $8.0 million and Shall We Dance ? at 5 with $6.3 million.

Look what I found on my doorsteps !
As you can see in the picture below, I got a response on my earlier post.

Find the full letter here.

That’s not all, actually. Attached to the letter was a 39 cents stamp ! Talk about full compensation.
Anyways, another clear case of “The truth, will get you something free”. Of course, my angel-like innocent face helps a lot too.

Rate 1 (FR#^&% MESS !) to 5 (how very tidy !). Only rate the latest picture, otherwise I can’t keep track of the average.

Total: 1213 out of 377 votes > Average is: 3.218

The combination of two franchises culminate into a pretty mediocre result. Trying to be an all-out blockbuster, it tries to please the crowd so much, it only chews out the usual cat-mouse games and a whole bunch of cliches. The budget has been used well, as the production value really show. That way, all the second rate actors hired to be cannon fodder for these aliens aren’t that noticable. While it lags in all the other departments, it’s still a mildly entertaining movie, best enjoyed if you don’t spend too much money on it. Only worth a rent if you’re into this genre.6-.

William Shatner is still a very busy man, while starring on ABC’s Boston Legal, he’s still very much linked to his Star Trek history (and he’s still attending conventions here and there). Besides that he’s still developing for other TV projects, and starring in movies (upcoming Miss Congeniality sequel). And THEN he still has time to dive into a recording studio.
He made his story telling mode style his own, and the historical names The Transformed Man and Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds must ring a bell. Decades have passed, but in 1998 he guest-starred on Ben Folds’s solo album Fear of Pop Vol. 1, singing a funny and quite ingenius In Love. The collaboration must’ve been so great, that now a whole album has been born. 10 songs (an eleventh is more a eulogy for his late wife, who drowned in their swimming pool in 1999) are very alike the In Love song. With strange background music, ranging from jazzy to country to hard rock, Ben Folds proves a versatile producer. He mixes it well, keeping it interesting and making every story stick. Guest vocals add something extra too. Besides Ben himself, Aimee Mann, Joe Jackson and Brad Paisley elevate the stories to a slighty more swinging experience.
Truth be told, the oldies were a bore, but In Love was enlighting. Luckily this album falls in the second catagory. While it’s definitely not a firecracker, it definitely works well in the background and may even persuade you to sway your head, unintentionally or not.7.

A new series on the UPN, and hence the title “The new Buffy” has been born. This show however, leans more towards Alias, with the title role (played by new comer Kristen Bell) having similar facial features, and also featuring in the series are undercover props, accents, and other spy techniques. There’s even a main mystery story arch threaded throughout the whole season. Character design is also similar, with the strange daughter/father relationship and a missing mother. So basically, with the CIA/Rambaldi subjects replaced by high school subjects, it’s a junior version of Alias. After 5 episodes, there’s reasonable depth, and the entertainment value is just above ordinary. If they keep improving, it might be a keeper, but reaching Alias’ level of quality takes a whole lot more.