Winnah!
A man gets $5,525 for his confiscated pot plants. He got it from his insurance company to cover the cost of losing the plants.
November 2001 Archives
It's almost that time
Everyone remember to say rabbit rabbit tomorrow.
SCORPIO (Oct 23-Nov 21) - Week of November 29, 2001
Congratulations on having such an ambidextrous brain, you nimble wise guys and riot grrrls. Due to your ability to blend hard-headed rationality with a robust trust in uncanny mystery, you have not fallen prey to the inane strains of insanity that have been going around. Instead you have achieved a weird and glorious victory over the fearful fantasies that are passing for normalcy. Please accept the thunderous applause of my one hand clapping. The people who take everything personally and seriously may not recognize your ingenious work, but we connoisseurs of the liberated imagination do.
(-- Courtesy of Free Will Astrology --)
Birthday Madness
Happy Birthday Lukas! Don't party too hard tonight.
(deleted that doublepost... sheesh)
On a slightly happier note
Billy Idol turns 46 today. I think we need a Gen X reunion tour.
George Harrison
Growing up I got to hear a lot of The Beatles. That was one of the things my mom listed to a lot (along with a healthy dose of classical music). So when I read that George Harrison died yesterday, I took a moment and remembered those times. I still think there's something timeless to a lot of their music.
Online Photos
So I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to fit my photo gallery into my new layout. I'd like to come up with some better way of displaying the pictures. I've seen a couple of different systems for doing it, but I haven't found one that fits for me yet. How do other folks do this?
Telezapper
Over on Evhead there was mention of the Telezapper. I've been seeing ads on TV about this for the last few weeks and I've been quite curious about it. The idea of it is that you have this box that lists to incoming calls and can tell which ones are from telemarketers. When it senses one from a telemarketer, it sends a signal back down the phone line telling their computer to delete your name so they will never call you again.
It's a neat idea, but I wonder how long before the telemarketers upgrade their software and make it obsolete.
Fun Medical News of the Day
In the past year my bone density has gone down over 2 percent. Average for someone my age is 1 percent. So, I've been given instructions to have more calcium every day and been perscribed Actonel.
In related news, Actonel isn't covered by my Insurance, so I'm going to have to call my Endocrinologist tomorrow. What a pain in the ass.
Phew, not that bad
I took at test to see how much of an e-bore I am. Luckily it looks like I'm not much worse off then the average person.
The Rules
Ever wonder about the rules for calling Shotgun? Well here they are!
Baking Goodness
Happiness is warm brownies.
Searching hi and low
Google and other search engines are getting criticism for possibly crawling too deep into other people's sites. Google now lets you search for other file types beyond just web pages. I personally think this is pretty slick.
The problem is that people are searching for things like password files, and finding them via Google. Google is being partly blamed because they weren't thinking about security. I'm sorry but that's just plain silly. If you put things like unprotected password files on your web site and just hope people won't stumble upon them you are asking for trouble. Don't people remember that security through obscurity is a bad idea?
Resizing the world
One of the biggest things people complained about in my redesign was that it was too wide. So today I made it so that it should resize with the browser. If anyone has issues let me know.
Another new feature
I added the ability to translate my site to the righthand nav bar (look down towards the bottom). I've noticed a few pages that had this as an option, so decided to add it to my page. It uses google to handle the actual translation.
We Rule!
An article on Reuters about how the US remains the world's sexual superpower.
(Does that mean there is still hope?)
If I were a cheese
I went to the Online cheese comparator and found out my cheese rating. Here are the results:
Cheese results
Your name is: Gregory Blake
Your cheese rating is: Jarlsberg
OS X goodness
So I'm trying out the new version of Microsoft Office for OS X and I have to say that it is pretty damn good. So far I've only played with the email program, Entourage. I started up word, and it looks like Word. I'll have to try it more tomorrow.
Entourage is rocking my world though. I have to say, the mac group at MS really does seem to be quite clueful. All the things I always wished I could configure in Outlook Express for windows are tweakable. Quite cool IMHO.
The magic of Childhood
Over the Thanksgiving holiday I got to spend a bunch of time with my 2.5 year old nephew Cameron. This little kid rules. Any kid who thinks that I'm the coolest thing since sliced bread gets lots of brownie points with me. He'd be doing something and see that I was in the other room and a big smile would break across his face. Moments later he'd be running over going "UNCLE GREG". I have to give my sister big props for raising such a great kid. Despite all the things she is going through right now I think she is doing a great job. I wish I could see him more regularly so that I could watch him growing up.
Right now I'm trying to find just the right thing to get him for christmas. Last year I got him this great set of blocks that my sister says he still likes and plays with. I think I'm going to hit The Construction Site sometime soon and see what they have.
Addiction
I am so addicted to this book I'm reading right now. It's been a while since something has sucked me in like this. I have to say it's a great feeling. I love that there is something making me put aside the keyboard, turn off the television, put on some music, and just read. I was just reading and suddenly realized that it was dark out and that was why I was having such a hard time. It almost feels as good as when I get lost in the music when spinning.
Notes on Changes
I'm curious at how the red on black works for links. It looks ok on the browsers I've checked in on, but that is only a few at this point. I need to see it from work on the machines I've got there to get more of a feel for it.
Changes
So here it is, version 2.0 of life - listed chronologically. I still have a little work to do with the other pages of my site, but I thought I'd put this up in the meantime to see what people think of it. I'm pretty happy with it myself.
Finally
This morning I finally got an idea for a redesign of my page. Hopefully it will come out okay. Look for it in the next few days.
Tim Powers
Okay, so I'm an idiot. I remember my friend John Leavitt mentioning him back when i was in High School, but I never got around to reading anything by him. Then, years later, friends of mine online were talking about him. I picked up Last Call a few weeks ago and just started reading it and am hooked.
I really need to pay more attention.
House Music 101
I'm on a mailing list for ravers who have been around a while (in other words, old). One thing I absolutely love about it is that there are people on the list who have been around forever. They aren't just 'old skool', they were there when the 'skool' was just being built. Here is a history of House music from one such individual. What I like about it is that it doesn't just talk about the music. It talks about the people involved with the music, the communities the music was entwined with. It is one person's journey through life and music. And I find myself always looking forward to every new chapter.
Thanks Apollo!
In the beginning there was Jack and Jack had a groove...
and from this groove came the groove of all grooves. And while one day viciously throwing down on his box, Jack boldly declared, Let there be House, and House music was born. I am, you see, I am the creator, and this is my House, and in my House there is only House music. But I am not so selfish, because once you've entered my House, it then becomes our House and our House music.
and you see no one man owns House because house music is a universal language spoke and understood by all. You see, House is a feeling that no one can understand really, unless you're deep into the vibe of House. House is an uncontrolable desire to Jack your body and as I told ya before this is our house, and our House music and every house you understand there is a keeper and in this house the keeper is Jack. Now some of you might wonder, who is Jack, and what is it that Jack does? Jack is the one who gives you the power to Jack your body. Jack is the one who gives you the power to do the snake. Jack is the one who give you the key to the wiggly worm. Jack is the one who learns you how you walk your body Jack is the one that can bring nations and nations of all Jackers together under one house. You may be black, you may be white, you may be Jew, or Gentile, it don't make a difference in our house, and this is fresh.
(Sorry, couldn't help myself. There's something wonderful about waking up and putting on some house music.)
SCORPIO (Oct 23-Nov 21) - Week of November 22, 2001
Going back to sleep might be tempting. Weeks have passed since your initiation into the brave new world. You may wonder whether you have the patience and discipline to keep dealing with the explosion of novelty. You could be in danger of becoming numb to the revelations that not so long ago changed everything forever. But I'm here to urge you to do whatever's necessary to stay awake, Scorpio. Pinch yourself, spank yourself, whisper spontaneous poems to the mirror, scrawl sacred vows on your bedroom walls. Just don't lose the primal motivating power of those supernova moments when you were reborn.
(-- Courtesy of Free Will Astrology --)
Google?
I just remembered to look and see if Google was doing anything neat with their logo for turkeyday and it's just the plain ol' logo. Have they stopped doing that kind of thing?
Things I am Thankful for
I'm thankful for a few things this year
- I have a job in these crazy times. And not just a job, a job where I feel like I'm learning new things every day.
- My Family. Especially my parents, who have been so very supportive in recent times.
- My Friends. Who are really my second familly. Thank all of you for the help you've given me the past few years.
- Science and Medicine, without which there wouldn't even be a hope for me to get another Lung.
- Sifl & Olly, for making me laugh at insanity.
And thanks to all of you who come by here and read my inane ramblings every day.
Thankful
Happy Thanksgiving everybody!
I'll be eating lots of turkey and pie today. YUM
Ahhh, the life of a turtle
I almost wish someone would ask me what I learned today. Because I so want to be able to answer, "That turtles can breath through their ass!
Traffic sucks
It took me much too long to drive down to CT today. I'm cranky.
Long weekend ahoy
Well, I leave to head down to my parent's place in CT in under an hour. I'm psyched to have a few days off, but for some reason I'm dreading Thanksgiving this year. I don't know why. Well, I partially know why, it's because there's going to be a ton of family there. And right at this moment I don't have the energy to deal with it.
I also have this feeling of impending doom. I'm not sure where it is coming from. It's one of those 'something doesn't feel right in the universe' feelings. There's nothing solid to back it up, but it's there. It's probably nothing (or something silly like the apple pie for thanksgiving won't come out right :)).
MMMMMac and Cheese
Annie's makes some of the best mac and cheese out there. It's been one of my favorites for a long time. They've now come out withnukable single serve mac and cheese. Kraft has had something like this for a while, but given a choice I'd take Annie's anyday. I got some at the store tonight and will report on it over in my live journal when I get around to trying it.
iPod Info
Someone has already put a site called iPod Hacks. So far it looks to be mostly news to do with the iPod. I'll be interested in seeing what hacks people come up with over time.
Too much information
From RISKS via a mailing list I'm on. If you go to Google and search for your name followed by your state there is a good chance you will see your phone number and address. Yikes!
To have yourself removed to to http://www.google.com/help/pbremoval.html
Moving Day
Today I get to move back to the old area I used to work in. They're trying to consolidate people since our staff has shrunk considerably in the last few months. I'm actually kind of psyched because I like our old work area much better then where we are now. Though I will miss sitting by a window with a view.
XPod to the rescue
Now for those of you who don't have a Macintosh, but are interested in that spankin new mp3 player from Apple, it's XPod. It's not out yet, but it sounds like they are in beta. I may have to get a copy of this so I can sync up no matter where I am.
How come...
It's so hard to wake up when it's raining out?
Love Hina
So I just finished watching Love Hina. Wow, what a fun series. It made me laugh many a time.
Now I just have the two specials to go.
Do they care about hilites?
I have blonde hilites in my hair, I never thought things like this would cause any kind of issues. Yet a student gets suspended for having blue streaks in her hair.
Pong: The next generation
Here's a silly little flash movie about pong to entertain all of you.
Blogging Musings
Back when I was in high school I wanted to be a writer. It was only for a year or so, but for that year I was quite serious about it. I was even thinking about majoring in Creative Writing in college. In the end that didn't happen. I decided to go into Information Systems, then promptly dropped out.
I've realized lately that I still like writing. I don't think I'm at the point where I'd consider writing a book or anything. But I keep finding myself writing longer and longer blog entries, many of which don't get posted.
I was going to say more here, but I just got pulled into a meeting, which completely destroyed my train of thought.
The child inside
I wanna go to the Build-A-Bear Workshop that is near me. It just seems like so much fun. What can I say, I'm a kid at heart.
(Been meaning to mention it since I read about it over on Voxmachina but kept forgetting until this moment)
SCORPIO (Oct 23-Nov 21) - Week of November 15, 2001
You could really use about twice as much elbowroom and five times as much headspace. You deeply deserve a brand new red toy and a poetic license and a blank check. You would greatly benefit from diving in over your head and feeding a telepathic flirtation and singing a fresh freedom song and fashioning a mask that fits your new face and drumming up a self-made lucky break. And I like your attitude so much these days, Scorpio, that I'm going to interpret the astrological omens as suggesting you have an excellent chance to claim all the above.
(-- courtesy of Rob Brezsny's Free Will Astrology (My favorite horoscope site) --)
Note to self
Try and start getting home from work before 7:30 or 8pm. After a week of this you end up being much too cranky for your own good.
Last week I was about ready to kill people by the time Friday rolled around. My parents were up on Saturday and I just really wanted to stay home and sleep. On the other hand it was good to see them. We went to Trader Joe's (had to get more of their yummy frozen gyoza) and then they helped out some around the apartment. Then I was over a friend's place watching the second episode of '24' and some of the Sopranos (I saw my first episode ever, I will not get sucked in I will not get sucked in).
I finally passed out around 8 or 9 pm on Saturday. And it was definitely passing out. I was at that level of tiredness where you just don't want to deal with anything, where you just curl up and let yourself drift away. I don't like letting myself get that tired.
TiVo Envy
uwiz says: after i finished i checked the stats and it said basic recording time: 198hours, 46 minutes
Gregory says: d'oh! how big of a drive did you put into it?
uwiz says: 2x80G
Oh man. I wasn't tempted before, but now that I hear how easy it is. And now that drive prices are so cheap. Hmmmm.
The smell of relaxation
Two years ago my friend Emily got me this great aromatherapy thing. It has this small glass dish and you put water in it and put drops of certain oils in it. In my case I use things like Lavender, Eucalyptus, and Peppermint. Then you put a small candle under it and light it. As the water and oil are heated they give off the smell. It's very soothing. Different oils have different things they are for. Some are good for your breathing, some help you relax, etc. I want to read up on it a little bit more because I know I'll be running out of at least some of my oils soon.
If anyone knows of any good web sites on aromatherapy I'd love to know about them.
Something about Sunday mornings
For some reason i just can't seem to get motivated this morning. I got up relatively early and spent a good deal of time IMing. Now I'm contemplating my day. Earlier my plans were head out for some breakfast then go to the movies. Now though, I am feeling a little lazy. I think I may go and grab some coffee and a bagel or something and come back and watch Totoro.
I feel like I've been running at high speed for the last week and need to just slow down completely for a day.
So just what is a blog anyways?
Dave Winer wrote a great thing on What are weblogs? I wish I'd seen this when trying to explain them to a friend of mine the other day.
I feel so relieved
It look like the porn spammers care about me (well, on some level). Today I got an email that said:
After a month of HARD work, I found NEW 100% DAILY SEX GALLERIES
for your private eyes only! GO NOW and ENJOY THEM!!!
I feel so honored that they are looking for more porn for me. I didn't even ask for their help!
I really am starting to get sick of spam these days. It just keeps getting more and more annoying.
There's magic in the air
I saw Harry Potter last night. Wow. I won't give any spoilers for the movie itself, but I did feel I needed to say some things about the film. Filmmakers take note, this is how you do a movie of a book. For the most part it was very true to the book. Any time you go from the written word to live you have to make changes. There are things that work on paper that just don't work well on film.
Hollywood on the other hand has this tendancy to need to change things. Actors will decide that they have final say over how the character they play would act. Producers make changes. Everyone is on their own little ego trip. So you'll see a movie suddenly change to become nothing like the book it was based on.
Harry Potter did quite a good job of really sticking to the story and bringing a fantasy world to life. One 9 year old reviewer on the radio said he loved the movie, almost more then the book, because it gave him some an idea of how Hogwarts might look. I know I can't wait to go back and read all the books now myself.
Of course now I am waiting impatiently for book 5 and movie 2.
Lackluster Chai
So on the way home today I grabbed a cup of Dunkin Donut's Vanilla Chai. I wasn't too thrilled with it. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't as good as the chai that my friend Amy would make.
Another Damn Quiz
I haven't posted one of these in a few weeks, so thought I'd put this one up:
If I was an Autobot, I'd be:
Take the Transformers personality test at android5.com!
So that's how you do it
/usr/bin/girl posted a link to a guide for men on How to become a sex object. I took good notes, so maybe I'll get lucky this weekend.
Hey, I can dream can't I? ;)
Digital Musings
So last night I was talking to my friend Lukas and he was saying that he got a 40 Gig disk for quite cheap. So this got me thinking. I want a way I can store mp3s, mixes, divx movies someplace. I could use an internal drive, but if I ever get rid of the system I have to go through the hassle of pulling it out. So then i started thinking about external disk. A 40 Gig external firewire drive would just rule. It would be a good deal of space. It could easily be moved between machines. I can imagine just tossing it in my bag if I wanted to transfer some data to a friend's Mac.
Hmmm, now I wonder how much drive enclosures that do IDE-Firewire are.
TGIF
Thank god it's Friday. Only half a day in the office today. I get to drive out to someone's house and install VPN software after lunch. Then I'm hoping I can get a nap before going out to Harry Potter tonight. Somewhere in there I also need to pick up my apartment a little bit before my parents come by on Saturday.
I'm almost thinking of telling them not to come up though. This has been a tiring week. I feel like I haven't really had a chance to relax all week and I'm feeling it start to show. I woke up with a headache this morning that is killing me and I just want to go and crawl back into bed.
Geek Fun
Warning, geek humor ahead
This RFC has been around for a while. I've always thought it was pretty cute. But I was amazed to find out that someone had actually implemented it.
(Of course, everyone else probably knows about this, but it was new to me)
Crop Circles, Pt II
Maybe the messages aren't for us. Maybe they're leaving messages for their friends. Or maybe they're just just teenage aliens tagging us.
I feel a song coming on
Over on The Bleat there is mention of song-poems. Complete with a link to the American Song-Music Archives. What is a song poem? From the archive's information page:
"SONG-POEMS wanted ... for NEW SONGS and RECORDS ... needed AT ONCE!" So what is this "song-poem" thing, anyway? It ain't in the dictionary, y'know. A song-poem, it turns out, is nothing more nor less than a set of lyrics to a single song. Song-poem music is that which results when these lyrics, submitted by readers of ads such as the one above, are set to music by studio pros, who churn out finished recordings on an assembly-line basis, sometimes pumping out an amazing quota of 12 songs per hour! Belying their inherently prostituted origins, these finished song-poem recordings are sometimes quite remarkable, either by being so inept in all directions as to defy belief, or by being weirder than the weirdest thing you've ever heard. Sometimes they are both at the same time.
The site even has a whole bunch of mp3s of song-poems for you to listen to.
I hate
How MS makes all these assumptions about how I want to browse the web. So far I've run into two features in IE6 that I think are kind of enh, both are to do with images. The first is one where if you let your mouse sit in an image it pops up this little toolbar. I think the toolbar idea is neat, I just don't want it popping up all the time. The second I find more annoying. If you load in an image that is bigger then the size of your window it will automaticly shrink it to fit. I noticed it because it starts loading the images in at full size, and they look great. Then suddenly, the images were shrinking down and looking crappy.
So far these are the only real new things I've noticed about IE. That and there seems to be something weird with cookies. Sites that remebered my information before seem to never remember anything now. I've tried tweaking around with the settings and haven't found which are the right ones... yet.
Well that's how I'd send a message
Crop Circles. Does anyone find it odd that aliens are leaving us messages in wheat fields? What's next? With technology like that they could do just about anything. Maybe they'll burn some messages into the moon. That would be cool.
I wonder if they have happy meals
Restaurants are always leaving fliers in the entryway of my apartment building. Today where was one for the "Friendly Eating Place". It appears to be a pizza place.
I don't know about others, but pizza places are supposed to be called things like "Mass House of Pizza", "Olympic Pizza", or "Frank's Pizza". Note the use of the word 'pizza' in the title.
iPod fact of the day
To reset your iPod, hold in the menu and play button at the same time for 8-9 seconds and it will reboot the device. I found this out after freaking out because my iPod stopped responding this afternoon at some point. I called up the Apple store and that was the first thing he told me to do. Phew!
sometimes
work really sucks.
Bah
Interesting Lung Transplant Factoid
Since the beginning of the year, the hospital I go to has only done nine lung transplants. When I was there today I was reading a newsletter that showed when they occured. There were a bunch in the beginning of the year, and then almost none till last month. It just goes to show you it's hard to plan out when it may happen. I think I was also suprised that it was only nine so far for the year. For some reason I would have thought it a little higher.
Odd sight of the day
As I'm on my way to my doc's appointment this morning I happen to glance over at the car next to me. All over the roof are trolls. You know those little plastic things with the weird hair. There must be a couple hundred of them, all standing on top of this car. I decided it would be cool if you could wire them all up to sing along with whatever you were listening to at the time in the car.
I wake up this morning to...
A truck driving around telling me "No Parking. Streetcleaning. On the even numbered side of the road. Will be tagged and Towed. Streetcleaning." At least now I can understand what they are saying. I think they replaced their speakers. Before it used to be "No parking on
When I'm bored
I love to just spank the monkey.
(-- stolen shamelessly from zannah (again, i never have any original links) --)
Humerous (and annoying) Spam
So I've noticed this trend in spam lately. I got my third spam in the last week or so that reads like:
hi, Denis
look at this!!!
VIDEO LOLITA! NO CREDIT CARD IS NEEDED!!!
http://lolitax.cc
Janna
What I find most interesting is how it is written like a 'personal' message to someone that might have been missent (I almost wish I knew someone named Denis to forward the message to). One of the ones I got last week was like "Hey. I'll call you when I get home." Which feels like it must have been a test message to see if the spam worked.
Goofin around
Over the weekend I was looking at my blogrolling list and trying to get a little bit more information out of it. There are times I'd look at the list and not be sure just how long ago one was updated. My solution, color coding. More recently updated blogs are moved to the top and have a red tone to them and the color tone will gradually get more blue as the updated time is older. I still need to tweak the colors to make them fit my page more, but I'll get that done in a day or two. Big thanks go out to my friend Cheryl for giving the initial color help.
What do folks think?
Blog envy
I was sitting at home this morning, doing my morning read through the news and some of the blogs I read. Some of them are really great. Lately, the ones I've been enjoying the most are ones that aren't just a list of links (Though those are great because they distract me from work). The ones I've been liking are ones where people write longer posts. Be it just random writing about life, about things that happened on recent trips, or about things they are reading. I find myself being a little envious because a lot of times I find it hard to write a lot on things that happen to me. I'm not sure if it's just me being editing out all the things I think people wouldn't care about, or if it is just me not knowing how to express myself. At the same time I like them because they push me to do something more with this blog. I've also started to understand why some people have more then one one weblog.
Now if I could just come up with a new design idea of this site.
Being complete
So often I use software that is good, but it just doesn't feel like it goes that extra mile that would make it great. This weekend I was ripping CDs like crazy. So I pop in an import CD from Japan, one of the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack CDs. iTunes2 finds it and lists the artist name in Japanese characters. I thought that was pretty damn cool.
The part that was even more cool was when I sync'd my iPod it was in Japanese too.
snoozePod
I tried to remain strong. I did. I was going to wait until I could get it at a slight discount through a friend of mine. But I kept thinking that I wouldn't get it before I got 'the call'. So Saturday I went out and got an iPod. I got to the store around 10:15 or so and there was a decent sized line, everyone there buying iPods. The box is small about 8"x8"x8" I'd guess. It folds out and one side has the iPod, the other has the power adaptor and firewire cable (which is used for syncing up and for recharging).
I'd ripped a few CDs earlier in the morning so that I'd have something to sync to it when I got home. So I unpacked the thing, plugged it in, and it sync'd up immeadiately. It was pretty slick, and very fast. The interface on the iPod itself is wonderful. You can browse music by artist/album, or just go through the whole list of songs. To scroll you use a dial on the front of the device that speeds up as you scroll through a long list, making it quite easy to quickly scan through hundreds of songs.
I gave it a good test this morning during my workout. It worked perfectly while on the treadmill (even though I was only walking). One thing it did make me realize was how much I miss portable audio. I used to always have a walkman on me, and in the past day or so wondered why I didn't as often. I think one of the biggest reasons was probably that I hated carrying a bunch of tapes around, which now isn't even an issue.
Apple is definitely targetting the general consumer market with this device. It is something that I feel is simple that my parents could use. I think the hardest thing to teach them would be how to rip audio from CDs, and even would be pretty easy if done by example. So far. I give the iPod a big thumbs up.
Must. Improve. Mood.
Today sucked.
I'm in a crappy mood.
Things that suck #2393
Having to rely on having oxygen tanks. Last night when I was getting in from the movies I guess I'd had it turned on continuous flow. Normally, it is on pulse flow, and after a few minutes shuts off automaticly. But when on continuous flow it will just empty the tank. The thing that bites about this is that I'm now out of oxygen till tuesday. So my movements are severely slowed till then. I'm really annoyed by the whole thing.
Brunch
One thing that bites about sunday mornings is not being able to find people to have brunch with. I usually like to go between 8 and 10:30 because it isn't so busy that you have to wait long. The problem is, I hate calling people before noon. So many of my friends don't even wake up till at least then. I've started just going alone most of the time and don't mind it too much. When I go by myself I always go to Rosebud, this small diner in Davis Square.
The thing that's great about Rosebud is that I've been going there at least once a week for a while now. And most of the time it is me going alone and sitting at the counter. The same woman is always working behind the counter and is so funny. She always gives me a hard time if I haven't completely cleaned my plate. So I have to always make sure I don't order too much. But I like it. It's nice to have someplace where they know you. It's my own personal breakfast Cheers!
Of course now that I'm typing this I've started thinking about my Boston Brunch site. I haven't updated it in months. I just haven't had the time to really sit down and look at it. Soon though, maybe next week. I still think it is a great idea for a site. I just need to change a bit of how it works.
Mini-Review: Heist
I went to go see Heist, the new David Mamet film, with my friend Becky today. I liked it. I didn't like it as much as I have some of Mamet's other stuff (like The Spanish Prisoner), but I still thought it was quite good. Gene Hackman was quite good in it. The movie itself was kind of slow paced, but I think it worked quite well. Up until the last moment I still wasn't quite sure how it would end.
Cute, but...
Okay, so cell babies are very cute. But could you imagine walking down the street talking into one of them? It would look like you were talking into its ass.
Fun with IE
There's yet a nice little security flaw in IE. This is definitely one to be aware of. Will the madness never end?
mmmm... relaxed
So I got up early this morning and went to pulmonary rehab. I really need to be much better about it. Not only is it good for me I really do feel great afterwards. It also helps me get around easier when I am in shape.
I also spent the afternoon wandering around Harvard Square and people watching. One of the best moments was in Newbury Comics. This kid kept picking up comics and flipping through them. Every once in a while he'd starting talking to the comic quite loudly, "Dude! No! Don't do that!" or "Oh man, that will never work. Oh wait! It did!". It was quite fun to watch.
It looks like this weekend is going to be nice and relaxing. I'm hoping to hit Malice tomorrow, and Ida also said people might be doing stuff tomorrow afternoon. Maybe I won't sit around at home for once ;).
What a tease
I happened to wake up for a few minutes and put the TV on. The TV guide thing on my Tivo said that Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust was supposed to be on and that it had just started. I switched the channel, but found only the old Vampire Hunter D, which wasn't bad, but I've already seen it a bunch of times.
AIE
Every night on tv they say, "It's 10 o'clock, do you know where your children are?" I panic for a few moments until I remember I don't have any.
The Tick
Uh... okay.
Parts were okay, but overall I wasn't that enthralled with it. I'll give it another week.
Lunch will never be the same
I just found out that the people who run the cafeteria where are work are leaving to be replaced by some other company. I'm actually kind of bummed because I think in the last year or so they've actually gotten pretty good. They have some great soups and always make a good sandwhich. I hope the new food service company coming in is good.
Weird Dreams
Falling asleep with the TV on seems to lead to very odd dreams. When I woke up in in middle of the night I was in that not-quite awake state. Then I realized that Daffy wasn't really running around outside my window and turned off the TV.
Officially Reactivated
Since I was on vacation and was thinking about heading out of town for a while I asked to be deactivated from the transplant list for the weekend. They called just now to confirm that I was in town to reactivate me. I'm starting to finally recognise the number they call from, so every time I see it I get all nervous.
The day for weird links
So a friend of mine IM'd me this link. It's nice to know that someone out there is looking out for a small furry friends (I think).
Oh what a tangled web
So I set up the code for the blogrolling part of my page when I was home. At home I do almost all my work on my macs. One difference between the IE on OS X and IE on Windows is that if you have a font size set to 'xx-small' and set it bold it shows up on the mac, but not on the PC. Just goes to show me that I still need to remember to view my site on various platforms and browsers.
bah.
Blogrolling Addition
I've added Adam Curry's MTV Chronicles onto my blogrolling list. He posts updates every day or so, and some of the stories are really great. As he says: none of the really cool stuff ever makes it onto the air!
Out of Shape
Given that I can't easily exercise currently I have been getting more and more out of shape. I've started exercising again, but I still need to do it more often then I have been. Today I did the treadmill and I'm really feeling it at the moment. I just want to curl up and take a nap.
Pull my finger
Just when you thought you'd seen almost everything on the net. You can now create a fart. Jeff, this one goes out to you.
Buffy the Musical
It was pretty cool. I dug it! I was a little nervous about how it would be, but I was pleasantly suprised.
Maybe he should try match.com
A Millionaire has been advertising on the net (and in papers) to find a wife. So far he's gotten over 2,000 responses, but hasn't found his match.
Tick Tock
Today's the last day of my little mini-vacation. It hasn't been too bad actually. I almost wish I had taken one more day off, but I'm quite happy with what I've taken.
One thing I find annoying is that, even on vacation, I can't seem to find enough time to do everything. I don't know if I just overextend myself or what. I've been wanting to get out to western MA for a while now to do some record shopping and to swing by NMH. I had hoped to do it during this vacation, but it just didn't seem to happen.
Ahh well. I'm going to just relax today. One thing I do want to get done today is finding a book to use for my letterboxing adventures.
Gnome, Gnome on the range
Lawn Gnomes. Made to stand out on people lawns day in and day out, these poor statues need your help to gain their freedom. Read more at the Gnome Liberation Front
(-- via /usr/bin/girl --)
Rainy Shopping Day
I came back from CT today so I could have a late lunch with my friend Cheryl and a friend of hers. Then I proceeded to spend more money on books, music and a DVD. Purchases today:
- DVD: Saint Tail #2
- Book: Tim Powers - The Anubis Gates
- Book: Vernor Vinge - A Fire Upon the Deep
- CD: Lush - Love Live
- CD: Deep Dish - Yoshiesque Two
MacMusic
Back when I got my PowerBook someone had mentioned in passing that there was a bunch of music on it already. I recently got around to searching for it and finding it. It is pretty neat. Apple includs a bunch of mp3s on all their systems now. The neat thing is the range of music on there. There is everything from Depech Mode to Chris Issak to Bigod 20 to Phish to Pat Metheny. There are also a number of spoken word tracks on there, including a few chapters of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. )Of course my question on that is: Is all of Harry Potter available on mp3?)
The bonus thing about all this music is that it gives me a bunch of things to test out recording on the CD burner via iTunes 2.
I love the smell of CDs burning in the evening
I finally picked up a CD burner today. I'd been wanting to pick up one for a while. It is the one thing that I am missing on the mac based platforms I run. I decided to go with firewire because with that I could easily move it between the two systems I have. So far it is working great. I'm working on burning episodes of Angelic layer to CD so that I have them archived someplace. It also means I won't have to keep them on my laptop. I figure I can work on amassing a nice little collection of anime to watch while I'm in the hospital. That's assuming I run out of DVDs to watch while stuck there.
Dare I ask?
I was in CVS today and as I walked past the hair isle I saw a container that said 'Hair Mayonnaise'. And I started wondering what the heck such a thing might be. Then I started to feel kind of ill because mayo always strikes me as something you use on sandwiches or to make tuna salad. I quickly moved on.
Off to the Parent's place
I'm off to my parent's place for a day or so. I should be back tomorrow, but I'm playing it by ear. I'm trying not to make solid plans at the moment.
Strange Awakenings
I discovered today that I never changed the time on my alarm clock when the time change happened. I'm still not quite sure how that happened.
More Anime Goodness
I just finished watching the Captain Tylor OVAs. They were actually quite nice, but seem to be hinting at something coming after them. I hope that there is something at some point. I like the characters in that show a lot (even if there were parts of the OVA animation I wasn't thrilled with). Now it's time to finish up watching the second Oh My Goddess! DVD.
Monsters, Inc.
So today (hey, I haven't gone to sleep yet, it's still Friday to me) was my birthday. It actually turned out pretty well. I tend to not expect much of birthdays, but they actually turn out pretty decent now and then. Actually, the last two years have been quite good for birthdays. I'm really glad I got to spend this one doing things I wanted to do. I relaxed. Then in the afternoon I had my regular massage, which was just perfect today. Then I just relaxed until it was time to go see Monsters, Inc. Thankfully, my friend Ethan picked me up so that I didn't have to worry about driving down there on my own.
As far as the movie goes. I dug it. I actually liked it more then A Bug's Life. I think it was a bit more interesting and held together better as a whole. The animation was stunning. Wow. There were moments where the fur on the main character looked so real. The movie was very cute. I'll definitely be getting it on DVD when it comes out.
Chai Chai Chai
So as I was leaving Dunkin Donuts this morning I noticed a sign up that said 'Try our vanilla chai!'. Chai? At Dunkin Donuts? I'm actually kind of curious as to how it will be.
And without much fanfare
Another year has come and gone. This one should be quite interesting.
Linux in the Amazon
Amazon.com says they have saved quite a bit of money by using Linux (and I'd guess open source tools in general). An article over at zdnet talks about this as well as some responses from Microsoft.
I may write more about this later on, but just wanted to drop the link in for people to see.
More blogrolling notes
I typed up a quick guide to how I did the blogrolling list to the left. I don't admit to being a world class programmer or anything, so the code may be a little rough (but it works). Feel free to grab and modify.
blogrolling goodness
So last night and this morning I worked on some scripts to automate the blogrolling section to the left. Hourly I have a perl script that grabs the changes.xml from weblogs.com. This script then goes and updates a database for any blog that I'm watching that has been updated in the last hour.
Then, I just query the database for my blogrolling list. Any blogs that are listed as updated at weblogs show up in bold.
I'll be posting up some public versions of the files I use in the next few hours.
Well isn't that special
Posted without much comment: Specialness the Movie.
Mmmmm Tuna Fish.
Things that rule about vacation - part 1
When you wake up at 4am you don't stress about having to go back to sleep so you won't be tired at work.
