coupling
June 18, 2004 by Eric Richardson
I first mentioned Coupling here about a year ago, when the first clips from the NBC version started to show up. I first saw the show well before that, though, and in the days before New Years 2003 VHS copies of a BBC America marathon through seasons one and two eased me through the removal of my wisdom teeth.
Now, it's season four. I'm not going to talk plot, 'cause I really want everyone to do whatever they must to obtain the show and watch it. But the plot's really not important to why I'm writing.
Tonight I finished season four. At the start, I had my doubts. Seasons one through three were without question the funniest sitcom I've watched. But season four started off on the wrong foot, coming back without Jeff. Not anyone's fault, but a bad mark just the same. Oliver was the new guy. They played him for the cheap laugh. He comes in to some physical comedy. Not really that funny.
But hold on... Stephan Moffet has a plan. He knows where he's going with this, even if you don't. You see, this is British television, not American. In America a season would have 22 episodes written by 8 different writers. A season on the BBC may only have six episodes, but each one of them is written by the same mind. And so the characters can evolve. The tone can change. All of a sudden you realize that even though this is still the funniest thing you're apt to see on tv, now it's also a show with a heart.
We'll see if Coupling returns for a season five. Every time it gets harder and harder to bring the original cast back together. I hope they find a way to make it happen, even if it would most likely be a couple years down the line. I don't get hooked on tv shows very often, but this one's got me.
a new old toy
June 18, 2004 by Eric Richardson
Yesterday I picked up a new old toy from someone who got tired of having it collect dust in his basement. It's an SGI IRIS Indigo (more commonly referred to without the IRIS... just Indigo). It's another of those machines that were $30,000 to $40,000 new, but these days they'll go on ebay for next to nothing. I'm starting to build up a collection of old SGIs: two Indys, the Personal IRIS, an Origin 200, and now the Indigo.
The machine's an R4k, which most likely means it runs at 100mhz. I don't have all I need to boot it up, so I don't know that for sure or how much RAM it has (the SIMMs don't say and I can't tell). It does have the Elan graphics package, with 4 geometry engines. I've put up pictures showing the card's size compared against a PCI card, some rewired traces, and the card without z-buffer (here you can really see the 4 geometry engine chips that dominate the main card). I also put up a picture of the Galileo video daughtercard, which snaps into the Elan. I don't have either of the breakout boxes for the Galileo, though, so it's not going to do me much good at the moment. I do have an extra IndyCam that'll connect to the Digital I/O, but that's it.
Like I said, though, I can't yet boot it up. The only SGI monitor I have out here in California is the one on the PI, and its input is composite RGB. I have a couple of SGI branded GDM20D11 monitors in Michigan, but getting them out here is the issue. Hopefully, though, I'll be able to get a friend to carry them along when he drives out in a few weeks. Then we'll be in business.
back
June 17, 2004 by Eric Richardson
Like I said the other day, Kathy and I took off for a little mid-week trip up to the Bay Area. We got back this afternoon/evening after a return trip that lasted a lot longer than the drive there. We got on the road about when I wanted and traffic was moving just fine until all of a sudden we hit a stretch of road construction on the 5 where it took us an hour and a half to travel 20 miles. It was ridiculous. Most of the time a brisk walk would have more than kept pace with us. Not only did that lengthen the drive, it also put us back into LA during rush hour, which meant more fun on the 405 and the 10. A little over 6 hours to get there, but about 7 and a half to get back.
getting out of LA
June 16, 2004 by Eric Richardson
Kathy and I are up in the bay area right now, on a quick trip to catch up with Alan before he flies off to Hawaii. We drove up yesterday, are hanging out here until Thursday morning, and then we'll turn around and make our way back down the 5 to LA.
The friends we're staying with have wireless, but my ever-helpful laptop has decided not to cooperate with it. It sends out DHCP discovers, and the DHCP server sends back an offer, but the laptop refuses to carry through and get to the request and ACK stage. Watching the network I can see all the appropriate packets going where they should, but then my machine decides to just pretend it's deaf. I love when it does that.
weekend wrapup
June 14, 2004 by Eric Richardson
I didn't really mean to take the weekend off... It was just one of those things that happens sometimes.