Denise Richards is Digging Deep

I used to be a fan of Denise Richards. She was HOT, still is, but as she dissembles her family and leaves every hint of self respect on video for a cable channel, I'm jumping off.
Denise, Denise, Denise, what's happened?

Of course, she has this new reality show,(no link, I'm not watching or promoting it, even if to nobody at all), and she was on Larry King the other night, baring her soul.

I read the interview and could do nothing but shake my head. I guess it is no secret that I enjoy Charlie Sheen, I wrote about him, not in too flattering a tone, but clearly demonstrating that I do watch his show. I admire the guy. He was a good actor back in the day, and has cashed in for a steady paycheck. The parts about him being a partier, womanizer, and frequent solicitor, well, so what?

He's not trotting his kids out onto national television for a buck and some exposure.

Apparently he lost the right to even stop his ex-wife from doing that in court. I caught a promo for the show last night, the kicker line is, "Watch, then judge.."

No need.

Book Review: XML Weekend Crash Course

I have spent a lot of money on Programming books, even since graduating from school. They are one of my favorite hobbies. Very often, for various reasons I don't finish or get a lot out of them, BUT I've never had an experience that made me want to write a negative review of one, until now. I am so disgusted with this book that I decided to at least get the word out.

XML Weekend Crash Course is a book that will surely make anyone that makes the mistake of buying it, as I have, crazy. I picked it up because a long time ago I got a Java Weekend Crash Course book that wasn't too bad. After I finished it I knew enough Java to be dangerous, well, almost enough. Unfortunately, the age of this book and bad or lazy planning by the authors makes it more than obsolete, it is a waste of time.

I realize that this book was published in 2001, I know they could not foresee everything about this programming language, but you do not set up more than half your book based on one piece of software. Of course there are other ways to go further with XML without the Instant Saxon software they tout and insist you must use. It is included on the disk, but doesn't work and is not supported(the web site they send you to is vague and the downloads you may use there are confusing and not helpful). Now I will be looking elsewhere for that information when I bought this book for that reason, and all of the fragments of code they have had me updating, waste. The SUPPORT Web Site is non-existent, and the disk harder to access than a 1999 magazine demo disk.

It starts out pretty good, but then they begin doing more complicated code that apparently needs to use an application called Instant Saxon, for reasons which I now do not know. Of course, I might have known if only they had stayed with the 'program'. As somewhat of an experienced reader of these types of books, I realize that this type of work is quickly being replaced by well-thought out, creative franchises like Head First and Pragmatic Books, but this one kind of stung.

I mean, it's like they set me up. 233 pages in and they drop the ball like that. In even a couple more days retrospect since my initial writing of this, I have decided that I was most angry because it was moving so good a the time, not at all like a poorly, lazily written work, then WHAM. It's like getting kicked out of the car at midnight, when you've already gotten to third base.

Smallville Season Finale - Preparing to be a Man

I got onto the Smallville bandwagon just recently, in the last couple years, but I've talked about that already.

Every sporadic Thursday, it almost quenches the thirst for all things comic book, and this season, it's been hitting closer to the mark. Over the past few weeks, as the CW seasons end, I have read a lot about Smallville. I hear Lex Luthor is leaving, I hear that next season they are bringing in some different villains, including Doomsday, the only one to kill Superman. As I don't read the ccomic anymore, I am not sure how DC danced around that particular comic stunt, but of course it is nothing new.

Wait, I was writing about Smallville, which is a television show which for many years kept a distance from the comic book Superman, building it's own mythology and it's own Clark Kent, not doing too terrible of a job either. Thing is, this season, they aren't really staying away from the comic book anymore. In fact, they keep bringing in more of the mythology only previously referred to in the comics. For one, in the episode two weeks ago, "Apocalypse," where Clark did his own version of "It's A Wonderful Life," time-traveling and jumping into a world in which he did not arrive from Krypton, he for the first time sported the classic reporter look, broad-rimmed glasses and all.

This last week, in the finale, more walls came down, and all signs were go that Clark Kent was going to quit being a watered down version of SuperBOY, and become a TV-version of Superman. It's risky, but I'll be tuning in.