Chatter Of The Squirrel

Creating ODBC for MS SQL Server 2005 Express

Stupid buggery that wasted a good 20min of my life. Installed SQL Server Express, but when creating the ODBC, it can’t open a connection to the local server.

Found the solution here,

“It turns out you must specify the instance after the server name, so in the server name in the dialog box for creating the ODBC Data Source, you must enter it as either: MyServer\SQLEXPRESS or .\SQLEXPRESS”

Wonderful. Why that level of un-intuitiveness ??

Also, to change sa password:

osql -U sa -S servername\instancename

sp_password @old = null, @new = ‘complexpwd’, @loginame =’sa’

go

OR

EXEC sp_password ‘old’, ‘New’, ’sa’

Movie: Wanted

In spite of all the Angelina Jolie leggy-goodness that you’ll see in this movie, the one scene that I took away from the movie is the screen-cap above. This is where the protagonist smacked his friend’s head with his ergonomic keyboard.

The moment I started seeing the keys float towards the screen in slow-mo, I immediately KNEW it was going to spell something. Just like Shoot ‘Em Up. And a split second later, I also realised that there’s two “U”s in “F*CK YOU”, and wondered if the movie was going to goof. Until I see that bloody molar starting to float purposefully towards the screen too.

Hilarious moment. I just LOVE it when I see something new and creative.

Incidentally, it’s quite unlike that you can cause that much damage with a modern keyboard. Only the Model M keyboard has the heft to be used as a melee weapon.

Incidentally, I’m the proud owner of just such an antiquated Model M. Strong plastic, solid steel insides, 101 individual buckling springs and interchangeable keys.

Back to the movie…

Loser protagonist suffers from anxiety attacks. Angelina Jolie rescues him from an assassin. Morgan Freeman tells him his father’s been killed, he’s got special powers. He trains to kill. And takes his killing orders from a weaving loom. Then takes his revenge.

There’s plenty of stunts and very flashy CG. Action sequences like The Transporter. After all, this is an age where the audience appreciates flashy sights and sounds, not authentic stunts anymore. It’s the Barney generation, regretfully.

But, when you just want some mindless stimulation, then this is plenty good.

Movie: The Dark Knight

Spent much effort to catch Dark Knight this morning. The movie ended at 2:40am, but it was well WORTH IT!

The Dark Knight climaxed so many times that I couldn’t keep count. Right after a HUGE action sequence, and you think it’s over, the plot escalates. This movie FAR exceeded my expectations!

This is not the “WOW!” from a 6yr old seeing Superman for the first time. This is a big “WOW!” coming from a lukewarm fan who only got into the franchise when the stories started maturing in the last decade.

Batman Begins created a deeper Batman, focusing on his personality and motivations. The Dark Knight created a truly terrifying Joker.

Heath Ledger is to Jack Nicholson, what Christian Bale is to Adam West.

No more campy, prancing fatman. This movie made me see the Joker as he was always meant to be. There were no wasted moments as every scene took you deeper and deeper into the Joker’s madness, and then you realise that it’s a bottomless abyss. The entire cinema was shocked at his disappearing pencil magic trick. It was a shared “WTF?!” moment. Then the way Heath Ledger walked around in his pink nurse’s uniform, it’s so comical, but you are already too terrified of him to find it funny anymore.

This is really The Joker’s movie.

This is a movie to own on DVD. There are so many moments.

Movie: The Love Guru

Mike Myers acting stupid isn’t all that funny, despite his delusions to the contrary.

And I blame all of you sheep for encouraging his delusion.

Love Guru isn’t all that different from Wayne’s World. Didn’t earn a single chuckle. Yet it met all my expectations.

But if you’re a fan of Mini Me, then he’s got a speaking role here, so you mustn’t miss that.

And if you’re a Jessica Alba fan, she does a Tamil movie dance at the end. It’s nice to see for all of 3 seconds.

And the opening sequence doing Dolly Parton’s Nine To Five with a sitar, that was cool.

Comic: Calvin and Hobbes

I’m sure that this is almost everybody’s favourite comic.

You can’t help but love it. It’s so sad that how the comic world works, and Bill Watterson’s creativity are so incompatible that he would rather quit drawing comics than to let some faceless suits profit from selling T-shirts and mugs with his characters on them.

Anyways, have you ever wanted to look for a particular Calvin strip. You know some of the dialogue, but you don’t know what book or year it’s from….

Now, there’s a way:

http://www.s-anand.net/calvinandhobbes.html

Some programmer typed out all the dialogue of every Calvin strip, and made it searchable.

It’s brilliant!