Author: Vicky

Rain, rain, go away

It rained heavily for over an hour yesterday. Bad timing because I was getting ready to go home and I had to wait. The road leading from the office was full of water but it wasn’t as bad as the roads leading to my street – both entrances were flooded for 20 meters with six inches of water.

Walking through the rank water all these words flashed through my mind: typhoid, cholera…

Transformers

Alien robots are searching for the All Spark, a device which gives them power. The race is on to see which side – the Autobots or the Decepticons – will to the All Spark first and caught in the middle are a group of human beings.

Transformers the movie follows three human stories – a group of soldiers who survived a Decepticon attack on their base, hackers trying to help the government figure who is behind the attacks and a teenager, Sam Witwicki, who unwittingly buys an Autobot car, Bumblebee.


My favorite storyline was that of Sam’s – there is so much humor and Shia LaBeouf is brilliant in this role. The interaction between Sam and the Autobots had me cracking up so many times, especially the scenes when they all go to Sam’s house.

I loved the way Michael Bay treated the robots – each one of them has distinct personalities that even though there wasn’t a lot of characterization you still get the sense of these robots from the cartoon.

So now the thing you’re all waiting for…the action. It was FRAKKING AWESOME. I got chills every time one of the robots transformed. And the havoc that they caused…WOW! I was overwhelmed by all the action in the final showdown but on further viewings, my appreciation for the seamless way the robots interacted with human characters and the sheer awesomeness of these robots fighting has kept on growing.

If it weren’t for the nostalgia of the Transformers cartoon the premise of this movie would just be plain silly. But watching Transformers you really begin to believe that alien robots do exist and that they can transform into regular objects.

Michael Bay, thank you for saving my summer. Up until this point I had really been disappointed with the movies I’ve seen but Transformers totally kicked ass. I’ll even go as far as to say that I’ve forgiven Bay for Pearl Harbor.

Favorite Autobot: Bumblebee
Favorite Decepticon: Barricade
Favorite Scene: Sam trying to deal with both his parents and the Autobots

Jim Carrey impersonates Horatio Caine

Pia showed me this clip of Jim Carrey impersonating CSI: Miami’s Horatio Caine and it’s so frakking hilarious!

I have this theory about why CSI:Miami is considered the most popular show in the world. It’s not the storylines, or the great acting, or even the forensics. It’s Horatio Caine and the mocking that goes with watching David Caruso.

As this clip proves, Caine is the master of cheesy one liners and habits made for a drinking game.

Pia and I used to watch CSI:Miami just to count the number of times Caine would:

  1. twirl his sunglasses before putting them on
  2. put his hands on his hips
  3. twirl his sunglasses, put them on before putting his hands on his hips and then say something prophetic before gliding out of the scene

From watching season 1 the most we counted in this episode was 44 but we stopped when RPN went off the air in Bacolod. But Miss(ed) Manners has a comprehensive drinking game.

Oh my god! No way!

I’m in shock. Denial. Numb. After moving servers it turns out that my database for Ben Affleck Fan is gone.

Dead.
Kaput.
Nada.

Yes that was my reaction too. 8 years worth of database content *kicks something* is frakking gone. And to make matters worse, I can’t read the cd that I backed up the database on!!! Grr Arrr Grrr!

My only consolation is that I used MovableType’s static html capabilities so I do have physical copies files. I just have to put everything back into the database.

*sigh*

Moving Your WordPress Installation? Consider This!

There are some great articles and tutorials on how to move your WordPress installation for all manner of user levels. They range from the basic to the detailed or for more advanced users.

But one thing these guides have failed to mention if you use the built-in upload facility – watch your absolute server paths.

What the frak is an “Absolute Server Path”

The absolute server path is the full path to a file or folder. More about paths. For example a jpeg file name “just-a-picture.jpg” is stored here: wp-content/uploads/just-a-picture.jpg.

The absolute server path could look like this:

/home/username/public_html/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/just-a-picture.jpg

This value is what WordPress saves every time you upload an attachment inside the following post meta keys:

  • _wp_attached_file
  • _wp_attachment_metadata

While this doesn’t really affect what you see on your website, it does affect the uploads admin page. Instead of seeing a thumbnail, you’ll see the full image.
And unless you want to upload all the images again, then you’re screwed.

Okay so I am exaggerating. You just have a bit more work to do.

So what do I do?

Before transferring your database over to your new server, open your database backup in a text editor and change all instances of the old server path to the new one with the search facility.

Or you could use the tool mentioned here to do a global search and replace for the absolute server paths.

I ended up making a plugin to help fix 1000+ attachments for my friend’s website. With better than dial-up internet speed, it took about a minute each to fix thumbnails and attachments.

So I’m releasing the Fix Attachments plugin for use as a last resort in case the two options I mentioned above don’t work for you.

Remember, have an unaltered backup of your database handy in case anything goes wrong. The plugin worked fine in my case but it may not work in yours and you WILL want to restore your database.

Pathfinder

Pathfinder

Pathfinder is the story of a young Viking boy left behind after a deadly battle between the Vikings and the Indians. He is found by an Indian woman and raised in the tribe. Year later, he has to defend the tribe from a group of Norseman intent on killing all the Indians in the settlement.

[rate 3]

My Thoughts on Pathfinder

  1. Vikings are brutal! I know that the Vikings of old were a blood thirsty lot but man, Pathfinder really rammed home that point what with all the sword fights, impalements, torture, etc. One Viking gets his eyes torn out and later after someone sews the eye socket, he cuts of the thread by ramming his sword over it. Ick.

    Even Karl Urban’s character comes up with a number of ingenious ways to kill the Norsemen.

  2. I didn’t realize that Clancy Brown plays a Viking leader (Oh Earth 2 memories).
  3. Dialogue is at a minimum – characters could go minutes without saying a word. I didn’t catch Karl Urban’s character’s name (Ghost) until the credits ran! But with the action, I didn’t really feel the time go past.
  4. Speaking of action, even though the choreography of the fight scenes were good, the cameraman must have come from The Bourne Supremacy School of Film-making. The camera work was jerky and I had a hard time concentrating on the fight scenes to the point where I had to close my eyes to prevent a migraine attack from sensory overload.
  5. The Indian settlement is such a beautiful place. Pia and I were discussing if it would be nice to live there what with the cooler weather.
    The mists over the mountains gave the place an ethereal feel, very lush and very peaceful but with all the Viking attacks, not a safe place to stay, even if there was a half-naked Karl Urban running about.
  6. Pathfinder has one of the cheesiest scenes since I watched Ghost Rider.
    It’s on the same level of cheese as Ghost Rider’s “I will fight fire with fire” with three finger pointing action and “He may my soul but he doesn’t have my spirit” (Pia says: isn’t that one and the same?).
    The delivery of this particular line had us cracking up with laughter in the cinema and every single time we think about it. I won’t mention it here because Pia will be going deeper into that particular scene.

I enjoyed watching Pathfinder, inspite of the bad reviews I’ve read, and the shaky camera action. The one thing that I was most disappointed by was the ending. Up until that point I thought that Karl Urban’s character was going to become the tribe’s pathfinder (at least that what the it seemed what the movie as about).

But he doesn’t! I was looking at Pia and both of us had our mouths open, staring unbelievably at the the screen.
What’s the point of going on this journey with this guy as he struggles between the Indian and Viking culture, vengeance and peace, if there’s no pay off at the end. Sure he gets laid (which is only alluded to on screen, Poor Ghost) and he gets the woman but we know he wants to be the Pathfinder not Mr. Pathfinder.

Amid the rumbling of the belly

It has been a busy week – I think I’ve been out of the office more than I’ve been in. Everything is just so GO! GO! GO! I can’t believe it’s Thursday already. It’s been so busy that Renante was suggesting we move our weekly meetings to Sundays. Heh! If he wants to be the only one in the office on a Sunday, sure go right ahead. Me? I’ll be sleeping in on Sunday.

Right now I’m waiting for Pia to get back from Bago so we can go to Julius’ house for dinner. He’s making pasta. Apparently the one dish that our friends can cook to perfection is pasta 🙂

And in other news, I found out today that Post Avatar is a finalist in the Philippine Blog Awards for Best Plugin/Extension. Wheeee.

Pia just texted and she’s on her way back. Dinner awaits.