Jason Bryant Blog

Macworld 2008 has come and gone and several new products were announced. I was most interested in the Time Capsule. A combination Air Port/Hard Drive that can do Time Machine back-ups over the network using ethernet. I was almost going to buy one until I realized that I’d be limited to 1 TB (it also comes in 5oo GB) of back-up space. While it would be adequate for now, what if I get a new Mac this year with a 1 TB drive? Ideally with Time Machine, you want a larger back-up drive than the system drive you’re backing up. This is so you can have multiple versions of your back-up, thus allowing you to go back “in time”.

So this led me to take a look at Drobo. Drobo is a four bay hard-drive enclosure that provides redundant back-up. That is, you can lose a drive and your data will still be safe (assuming you start with at least 2 drives). It’s like RAID, only smarter. Your drives don’t have to be the same size, however you make better use of the space if they are all equal. Their Drobolator demonstrates how this works. I like this solution because as drives get bigger, your back-up capacity increases. With single hard drive enclosures, you are limited to what’s inside. And you lose data if it ever goes down. So I ordered Drobo instead. I’ll let you know how it goes after I get it up and running.

The MacBook Air was another announcement. It’s a very sexy laptop and I could see how a lighter, slimmer laptop would be appealing. However, I have no real use for a laptop. I do most of my computing at home, at my desk, with my nice comfortable office chair. It’s worth pointing out that you could buy the new 8 core Mac Pro (without monitor) for the same price as the solid state Air, about 3-thousand dollars! It is a marvelous feat of engineering, however they make some pretty big compromises. The hard drive is very slow, 4200 RPM. The Intel chip, while it is a Core 2 (1.6 or 1.8 GHz), it’s not the new 45 nm technology that all new Intel chips will be moving to this year. I would wait on this one. There is also no ethernet jack, you have to use wireless. It also uses on-board graphics, so 3D performance will be slow. But that’s not the target of this machine. People will buy this as a fashion statement, not for function.

I also updated my iPod touch software to get mail, maps, weather, notes, stocks and those jiggly icons.

NHL Live Every Shift – Commercial Parody

It’s the NHL all-star weekend. My buddy made a parody of their commercial. All the things the NHL should be doing, but isn’t. Check it out…

Actor Heath Ledger is dead. Last week Brad Renfro died. Too soon, and so sad. We don’t have all the information of course, but for what it’s worth, please get off the drugs. Prescription or otherwise. I know people die of drug overdoses every day, but sometimes it takes a high-profile celebrity to get people to focus on it. That shit will kill you. Stop.

The city where I live, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada is very far from Hollywood. But it’s amazing what’s been going on…

For two months in November and December 2006 I was a stand-in and photo-double for Nick Stahl on the film “Sleepwalking” (it was called Ferris Wheel at the time). We battled though some crazy weather, but it was one of my favorite films to work on. It makes it’s debut at Sundance tonight. A local (Regina, Saskatchewan) article is here.

Charlize Theron was gracious and respectful. Nick was super cool, and always made sure to say hi. Dennis Hopper always hung out at lunch and took a lot of pictures of the Saskatchewan sunsets. Woody Harrelson even smiled at my lame joke about having a “safety meeting” at circus (for those who don’t know, circus is where all the trailers are parked off set).

My job was to stand-in for Nick during lighting set-ups. I also helped block the scenes with Charlize and Bill whenever Nick was still in make-up/wardrobe. I also did a lot of driving with that beat-up old car, which will be used for the long shots.

I can’t tell you how much I learned watching these incredible actors at work. I’ve taken many acting classes, but there’s nothing quite like being there with the best of the best.

Check out the trailer.

Another film, Downloading Nancy, also shot here in Regina, Saskatchewan debuted this week as well. I was Jason Patric’s stand-in. It was cool to meet a vampire from “The Lost Boys”, one of my favorite films growing up.

Good luck with the premieres!

It’s funny how much can happen in the middle of nowhere.

This just in from Crunch Gear. Warner Bros. has announced that they will be supporting Blu-ray exclusively beginning in May of this year. They had been hedging their bets and producing in both Blu-ray and HD DVD, but now they are dropping HD DVD. Add to that, the rumor that Apple will be adding Blu-ray drives to it’s Macs at Macworld, and you have a great start to 2008 for the Blu-ray camp. I chose Blu-ray this summer with the purchase of my PS3 and haven’t looked back. In fact, I bought The Limited Edition Harry Potter Collection from Warner on Blu-ray. It’s a great format, full 1080p (unlike a lot of HD DVD players which are only 1080i) and larger storage capacity make it superior to HD DVD, in my mind.

More on the fallout from Warner decision. The press release is here.

Happy New Year! As I mentioned to Twitter I hope you make more money this year, working less. Not that I want you to be lazy, I just hope you are able to make more money and have more time off.

So I just spent the past hour airing out my townhouse after filling it up with smoke from my fireplace. I think the chimney was blocked with ice, and the smoke came into the apartment instead of going outside. The most irritating thing however, was my smoke detector.  It is hard wired into the electrical system so there is no way to shut it off. At least with battery powered ones you can pull the battery out while you get rid of the offending smoke. That got me thinking, if a smoke detecter is electrical, how well is it going to function if there is an electrical fire and the power goes out? There will still be fire but no power, and no warning. I fail to see how this is better than the battery powered one they replaced a couple of years ago. I guess now I don’t have to replace the battery, but I fail to see how it’s better. It says right on the smoke detector “WARNING: UNIT WIlL NOT OPERATE DURING LOSS OF POWER”. Hmm.

Anyway this got me thinking about my goals for 2008. It has nothing to do with achieving, or making money, or picking up hot women. I want to do a better job of relaxing and letting go. That’s it. I need to be less tense, and more easygoing. I need to have more fun. I must quit complaining. I need to quit trying to control everything and engineer every outcome. Sometimes your apartment fills with smoke and all you can do is laugh about it and open a window. Here’s another worthy resolution.