The P-I is dead. Long live the P-I!

by

The writing’s been on the wall for some time now, but it’s just been made official: tomorrow’s print run of the Seattle P-I will be its last. I’m going to want to pick up a copy somewhere.

For me, first notification of the official announcement came via @moniguzman on Twitter: “Publisher Roger Oglesby just announced in the P-I newsroom: Tomorrow will be our last print edition, but seattlepi.com will live on.”

A “breaking news” banner went up on the P-I’s website about the same time, but now there’s an official story.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer will roll off the presses for the last time Tuesday, ending a 146-year run.

The Hearst Corp. announced Monday that it would stop publishing the newspaper, Seattle’s oldest business, and cease delivery to more than 117,600 weekday readers.

The company, however, said it will maintain seattlepi.com, making it the nation’s largest daily newspaper to shift to an entirely digital news product.

“Tonight we’ll be putting the paper to bed for the last time,” Editor and Publisher Roger Oglesby told a silent newsroom Monday morning. “But the bloodline will live on.”

In a news release, Hearst CEO Frank Bennack Jr. said, “Our goal now is to turn seattlepi.com into the leading news and information portal in the region.”

I’m sad to see the P-I go — of the two local papers, I always liked the feel of the P-I better than the Seattle Times. It’s a little hard for me to quantify just why (though I’m sure those who follow the media more closely than I would be able to make some educated guesses), they just more often seemed to be my paper of choice.

Best wishes to all at the P-I who are being affected by this, and best of luck to the P-I’s online-only incarnation.

Kent at High Flood Risk

by

I’m glad we’re not on the ground floor of our apartment building — as we live here in the Kent Valley, within about a five-minute walk of the banks of the Green River, we’re smack-dab in the middle of the area of South King County at high risk for flooding.

Four South King County cities face their most serious flooding risk in 40 years next fall and winter because of January damage to a flood-control dam on the Green River, authorities have warned.

The Army Corps of Engineers, which built and maintains the Howard Hanson Dam, says it doesn’t know what caused a 10-foot-wide, 6-foot-deep depression in an abutment to the rock and earthen dam.

As a safety precaution, the Corps will store less water behind the dam until engineers can figure out what caused the problem in the reservoir wall adjoining the spillway — and how to fix it.

In the meantime, the Corps will be forced to release into the lower Green River essentially all rainwater from storms, and risk overwhelming the levees that protect low-lying parts of Auburn, Kent, Renton and Tukwila, the federal agency has warned.

“We need to prepare for a long-term possibility that over the next few flood seasons we may experience anywhere from significant to catastrophic flooding, depending on the event,” said Dana Hinman, a Auburn city spokeswoman.

[…]

A larger number of homes and businesses could be hurt in flood-prone parts of Kent, where about 50,000 people work and 22,000 people live, said Mayor Suzette Cooke. She said the damaged abutment “clearly raises our level of concern” about levees downstream that haven’t been certified as meeting federal standards.

If the substandard Horseshoe Bend Levee were to fail, Cooke said, the Green River Valley could be flooded all the way to Interstate 405 in Renton, possibly severing Highway 167 and two main rail lines.

That Horseshoe Bend Levee is just over two miles upstream of where we live. While the levees closest to us were just worked on all last summer and should be in good shape, if the Horseshoe were to go, I wouldn’t be surprised if we ended up in the evacuation area. Of course, I don’t know for sure, but it might not be a bad idea to have at least a nominal plan for what to do if floodwaters start heading our way.

If I’m at home and have a chance to grab anything, I think my priorities (after the real necessities, like a couple days of clothes, etc.) are going to be grabbing my camera (no big surprise there, huh?) and popping open my computer to pull out the hard drives, double-bag them in gallon-size Ziplocs, and drop ’em in whatever bag I’m carrying. The hardware can be replaced (and would hopefully be covered by insurance), but the data is what’s really important. Hooray for quick-release SATA drives!

Dear Abby and Utilikilts

by

Last December, Dear Abby heard from a gent who’s found he’s far more comfortable in skirts than pants, and was looking for advice on how to deal with his unsupportive family. In yesterday’s column, she passes on lots of words of encouragement from others who’ve escaped the tyranny of trousers, and specifically mentions a certain local menswear company…

I heard from men and women across the United States and beyond who wrote supporting Joe in his decision to wear skirts. Many of them suggested he contact Utilikilts, a company based in Seattle, which manufactures a line of kilts for the modern man. Read on…

It should come as no surprise that I wholeheartedly support her in this.

LibraryThing Screensaver (for Mac OS X)

by

Are you a LibraryThing user? First off, if not, why not? It’s a great way to keep track of your library. If you’re on LT, or if you sign up, add Prairie and me to your contacts!

Now, for those of you that are LT members (and Mac OS X users), they’ve just released a new toy: the LibraryThing Mac Screensaver. It’s actually just a specialized RSS feed that grabs random book covers from your library which you can put into Mac OS X’s RSS feed screensaver. Here’s a little YouTube video showing the screensaver and how to set it up:

Basically, just add this URL (with your username, of course) to OS X’s “Mobile Me and RSS” screensaver, and you’re off and running: http://www.librarything.com/labs-screensaver.php?userid=USERNAME When I set it up for the first time, it took a few moments for the RSS feed to start generating images, so don’t worry if you get a “No Pictures Found” error at first. Just wait a moment or two and try it again, it should kick in fairly soon. This is now my screensaver of choice. Slick!

Watchmen Credits

by

While “Watchmen” didn’t end up as my favorite movie ever, I do want to join a number of people in recognizing the excellence of the opening credit sequence. In fact, this was probably my favorite part of the movie itself (seeing the newest “Star Trek” trailer was my favorite part of the entire movie-going experience).

The credits are a five-minute montage over Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A Changin'” that brings the audience up to date with the alternate history of the world in the film, through the heyday of costumed adventurers fighting crime in the 40s, their fall from grace in the 50’s, and several key moments where the Comedian and Dr. Manhattan influence the course of history to far different results than those that we are familiar with.

UPDATE: At the request of Noah Kaufman of yU+Co, the video file has been removed.

There are an incredible number of tiny little details and moments buried in this sequence, some that readers of the Watchmen comics will note, others being nice little nods to history. Sci-Fi blog io9 has a great rundown of some of the many (not-so) hidden moments in the credit sequence, and I was happy to note that I’d noticed most of what they’d mentioned. The two on their list that I didn’t catch on to are the Batman references in the first shot, and that Mick Jagger is standing next to David Bowie outside of Studio 54 (though I did see both Bowie and the Village People).

A little sad, perhaps, that the opening credits are my favorite part of the film, but they were very nicely done. All credit here (no pun intended) goes to director Zack Snyder and the crew at yU+Co[4]. Nice job, guys.

30 Years of CDs

by

Looks like the venerable Compact Disc turned 30 years old on Sunday.

Compact discs weren’t always impromptu drink coasters. Once, in the not-so-distant past, they played music, contained pictures, and let people play video games with tacked-on FMV sequences. And today, the venerable CD turned 30.

Of course, the CD didn’t immediately take off right then and there…it wouldn’t be until October 1, 1982 that Billy Joel’s 52nd Street became the first CD album released. It was conveniently released in Japan alongside Sony’s brand new CDP-101 Compact Disc player. The album (and more importantly the medium it was pressed upon) changed history, as more compact disc players were introduced into the market beginning in 1983. The music CD would reach its zenith with The Beatles “1” (30 million in sales), before beginning its eventual and inevitable fall to the Mp3 in the mid-2000’s (in 2008, for example, CD sales dropped 20%).

The first CD I ever bought was purchased while on a trip of some sort — I’m not sure, but I think it was during a trip to the Episcopal Youth Event one summer. A group of us Episcopal Youth had flown from Anchorage to Seattle, from whence we’d load up in a van and drive to Missoula, Montana for the EYE. While in Seattle, we got to browse through the Pike Place Market. This was my first time there, and I remember two things clearly: seeing a prop phaser (possibly a replica, though I’ve always remembered it being an original prop) at Golden Age Collectibles for quite a few hundred dollars more than I had available to me; and browsing through one of the music stores in the Market and finding a “Limited Edition” of Queen’s “The Miracle” album.

I didn’t even have a CD player at this point, but this was a limited edition! Who knew how long it would be on the market, or whether we’d ever be able to get it in the frozen wastelands of Alaska! As a Queen fan, I had to have it, and I plunked my money down. Of course, it wasn’t long before I discovered that “Limited Editions” are rarely anything but marketing drivel, but hey, I had my first CD.

(I did this with my DVD collection as well, picking up the original, un-edited release of “The Devil’s Advocate” before that pressing was recalled to have the unauthorized appropriation of the Ex Nihilo sculpture digitally edited out. This time, I’ve got a Special Edition that’s truly special!)

Amusingly, before that point, I wasn’t convinced that CDs were going to take off. In fact, it would be far more accurate to say that I was convinced that they wouldn’t take off. I mean, really, they didn’t seem that that much of an improvement over the tapes I’d been collecting for some time by then. They didn’t seem to sound any different, and you couldn’t even repurpose them when you got tired of the music that was on them! At least with cassettes, you could tape over the little holes at the top and put whatever you wanted on there after you were bored with that album. These CD things would be useless if you decided you didn’t want the music!

Of course, better CD players and better stereos soon convinced me that yes, there was a (very) audible improvement in sound quality, my CD collection soon grew to far outstrip that of my cassette collection, and now the majority of the 1,500-some CDs I own are in storage, while any of that music (and so much more) is available at a moments notice on my computer. And yet, I spend a chunk of my free time importing old LPs, 45s, and 78s to my computer, relishing the warm tones and old, outdated, analog crackles and pops of my collection of vinyl. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Mixed Messages

by

So…would this be an irony FAIL or irony WIN?

16 arrested in fight at nonviolence concert: Montgomery County police say 16 people were arrested after a fight broke out during a concert held to promote nonviolence and to remember a Silver Spring teen killed last year. […] Police say fighting broke out near the stage toward the end of the concert and at least one person resisted arrest. Police say 16 adults and juveniles were arrested for offenses such as assault and disorderly conduct.

Watching the Watchmen

by

Since I can only spend so many hours a day tossing resumes out across the ‘net before I start to go buggy, I decided to take a few hours out of the day and head out to catch the matinee of “Watchmen“. I got home a bit ago, and I’m going to see what I can do as far as getting my thoughts down. Perhaps a little jumbled, but so it goes.

First off, a few thoughts on what came before the movie. Remember when you would go to a movie, find your seat in a relatively hushed theater, and have a nice few quiet moments before the movie? Heck, at this point, I’m nostalgic for the stupid advertising slideshow we got for a few years, rather than the constant, loud bombardment of noise and flashing lights we get from the moment we step in the theater these days. Of the many reasons why I don’t go see movies in the theater these days, the advertising barrage is a big one.

This time, I scribbled little notes on my iTouch as the drivel went by…

“Last House on the Left“: Ugh. So not interested.
Worst thing about going to the movies these days: the stupid Kid Rock/National Guard music video.
E*Trade’s freaky talking babies don’t benefit at all from the big-screen treatment. Oh, and I get _two_ of those ads. Yay.
“Knowing” still looks interesting.
The Kia Soul hamster wheel commercial was cute, but will probably get old fast if it goes into wide release on TV.
Hmm…the “no calls during the movie” blurb has been updated to “no calls or texts.”
Previews:

  • “Wolverine“: Okay, so this one could be fun. Still likely a rental for me.
  • “Angels and Demons“: Another rental.
  • “Star Trek“: So, so, so nice on the big screen! This one, I’m there on opening weekend, if not opening night.
  • “Public Enemies“: Looks intriguing. Good cast, good director, could be worth seeing. Again, though, I put it on the rental pile.
  • “Terminator Salvation“: I just can’t get excited about this. Much like how (in my universe) nothing exists of Highlander beyond the first film, nothing exists of Terminator beyond T2.
  • “Observe and Report“: Oh, dear god, another mind-numbingly stupid mall cop movie? And to make it worse, it’s the last trailer we get, so after a lot of geektastic goodness, we’re left with a bad taste in our mouth (almost literally, any movie that features vomiting in the trailer is guaranteed not to get my money) before the main event. Nice job of programming, dolts.

And now, Watchmen.

First off, the good: it’s an incredibly faithful screen translation of the comic book, even with the changes made to the ending (no big spoiler there — that changes were made has been well-known, it’s what those changes are that have been kept more-or-less secret). From an artistic and technical standpoint, the film is astounding. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see someone make an attempt at a mashup between the comic book’s boxes and text and the movie’s images once the DVD comes out and they can get good screengrabs. You’d be able to stay incredibly close to the original work, save for the last issue. Very, very nicely done.

The casting was also incredible. Most of the cast were actors I didn’t know very well, if at all, but who fit their characters beautifully. I also got a kick out of seeing some old favorites pop up, including Max Headroom himself, Matt Frewer, as Moloch. Spot-on perfect.

That said, the movie ended up leaving me cold. It’s not at all that it’s a bad movie — as I just said, on a technical and artistic level, it’s amazing — it’s just that it completely failed to engage me, and in quite a few scenes actively repulsed me. I’ve been trying to work out why, and I think it boils down to two main points: first, that while I enjoy the original graphic novel and recognize it’s importance to the geek world, it was never the “event” for me that it was for many other geeks my age; second, I find that as I get older, I’m getting less and less desensitized to overly realistic depictions of violence.

To the first point: I’ve never been a huge comic geek. I don’t have anything against comics at all, I’ve enjoyed reading many, have a few collections and graphic novels in my library (Watchmen, V for Vendetta, The Dark Knight Returns, Marvel 1602, and the entire Sandman series being the standouts), but I was never hugely into either reading or collecting them (with the sole exception of The Tick, of which I still have the first ten issues — first prints of 2-10, and the second printing of issue one — carefully preserved). While I’d heard about Watchmen many times, I didn’t ever read it until I picked it up a few years ago, and even now, I’ve only read it twice: once when I first bought it, and once again last week. Because of that, while I find it a good read, and have read enough about it over the years to recognize it’s importance to the comic world, it doesn’t hold any particular personal importance for me. Good book, worth reading, that’s it.

To the second point: Yes, Watchmen is a violent book. I know this, and I wasn’t expecting there to be a strange lack of violence in the movie. However, I was more than a little put off by just how much, and how graphic, violent imagery there was. In some instances, it was simply the director being faithful to his source material. In other instances, though, the movie actually ended up being quite a bit more graphic than the original work did, and not simply because of the transition from drawn artwork to live action.

The rest is going beyond a cut, as I’m quite likely going to be more than a little spoileriffic here. If you’re reading via RSS or on Facebook, stop now or don’t whine. ;)

Read more