April 2002 Archives

I have a large number of friends who use LiveJournal for their blogging/journaling.  I think they actually provide a pretty cool service and I like a lot of their community building things.  At the same time, I find myself frustrated with parts of it.

The biggest thing I get frustrated with is comments.  Since many people on LJ are fairly anonymous, you can end up being on the friends list of people who you are at most only aquainted with.  Even though you read these people's posts every day, and they may feel comfortable with you reading them, they still aren't someone you know face to face.  So I find myself wondering just how acceptable it is to be responding to some people's posts.

The other thing I run into with comments is wondering how much I'd like to share with all the other people who can read comments on a post.  In many cases I'd prefer to just email a response if it is a subject that is fairly personal.  But sometimes it feels weird for me to be emailing things like that to a total stranger.

Anyone else here use LJ? What are your thoughts about it?

Alexa has released a new search service in conjunction with Google.  It's pretty interesting.  Here's the result I get when I pull up the page on my site.  It's kind of interesting. Though I'd like my traffic rank and links pointing in numbers to be better :).

What blogging archetype am I most like?

You are a David Weinberger.
You are smart, savvy, interested in why people do what they do,
enjoy questioning yourself and are not balding.
Take the What Blogging Archetype Are You test at GAZM.org

The interesting thing about thisis that I've been reading David's book Small Pieces Loosely Joined (and am just about to finish it actually).  I'll be posting a review once I finish it up.

Last week someone from a mailing list I'm on was in town for work. A number of us from the list got together for sushi last Thursday night. Since the list was a rave related list I brought along a mix CD, something I usually do for people in the scene I meet. He was like, "oh cool! Is this the one that starts out with all those funky samples? I love listening to that one when I work out." It's cool to know that people I don't know face to face are downloading and enjoying my music. It makes me happy.

Random music related observation. Some of my favorite music is the stuff I listened to when my life was at its lowest point. I'm starting to realize that as I collect music from that time period. I wonder if it's because music was the one place I could escape to and feel good back then.

Up way too early to get into work early so I can leave early to get to my massage. I need it this week. Though I don't feel quite as stressed as I did for the last one I had. I actually found myself getting MORE tense as the massage went on. Of course, we'd just let go our DBA earlier that day and I think that had something to do with it.

Diogenes the Cynic. "Most men are within a finger's breadth of being mad."

[Quotes of the Day]

Augh. I don't often swear here, but my local WB affiliate is a bunch of fuckwits. I was watching Angel and it was right at the end. And right as you about to see what the big cliffhanger is it suddenly flips to 'Tonight on the 10 o'clock news'. Then flips back just in time for the credits. Luckily a friend kept me appraised of what happened. Oh yeah, and I was right about what would happen.

I fear I am getting sick again. This isn't fun. I've had a sore throat all day. Ugs. I've done so well with keeping healthy and it sucks.

The fourth episode of Chobits continued to keep up the level of entertainment of the previous episodes.  It's interesting seeing how the story is progressing along compared to the manga.  I think within the next two weeks it will catch up.  Chi is definitely one of the more interesting 'robot girl' characters in recent past.

Dragons, the policeman knew, were supposed to breath fire.

My wacky sleeping hours have shifted slightly in a very annoying way. I seem to be making myself go to sleep a little bit earlier, which is good in theory. Now I wake up once in the middle of the night. That I'm used to, the part I'm not used to is waking up at 5am. 5am sucks because you just can't go right back to sleep at 5am. Or at least I can't. I know I'll oversleep so easily. So I end up just staying up and getting exhausted. Maybe I should just go into work real early so I can leave early and take a nap.

The second issue is that I forgot I need to clean out the whole area around my sink this weekend. So now I need to clean up all the dishes and stuff. I really hope they get the new sink in today. I haven't really dirtied anything major in the last few weeks, but it's because ii haven't been eating at home. This means I've been eating stuff that isn't that great for me. I want to start being able to fix my own meals again.

I've been thinking a bit about this blog lately. I seem to go through periods where I look at it and wonder what I'm trying to do with it. In the end it really is a bunch of random snapshots of my life and thoughts from it, but I sometimes wonder if I shouldn't have more focus.

As much as I don't care if people view this or not I keep finding myself editing a lot of what I say. Maybe I should change that to "As much as I SAY I don't care...". On the other hand it is cool to find out that people I know come by here to see what I have to say or to see what interesting links I've found.

There isn't much reason for this post, I just felt the need to ramble a bit. I think it's the rainy weather having its usual effect on me (making me all grouchy).

Looks like DNS and stuff is back. Mail is flowing in, so I bet this site will be viewable again. Thanks Lukas!

I've been downloading and watching a bunch of new shows lately. A

number of them are shows that are coming out right now, so they are

only in the first few episodes. Here's a rundown and some thoughts on

a number of them:

• Tenchi

  Muyo! GXP - I've only been able to track down one episode of this

  that had been fansubbed. So far I like it. If I understand things

  correctly it takes place after the upcoming new Tenchi OVA series

  coming out. This one focuses on the Galaxy Police, and someone from

  earth who joins up. It will be interesting to see where this one

  goes.

• .hack/SIGN - Welcome to the next stage in online

  roleplaying. Think of a high tech VR Evercrack. I've seen the

  first two episodes of this and we're still learning the details. For

  the most part it focuses on this one character who finds he can't log

  out of the system. I'll be downloading more of this for the time

  being. My one complaint is that the story feels like it jumps around

  a bit too much.

• Chobits - I've already talked a bit about this

  one, but I just want to mention it again. I got the HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1931514925/lifelistedchr-20">manga

  for it a few days ago and it will be interesting to see how the two

  stories match up. I'll definitely be following this one too, since I'm

  becoming a CLAMP junkie.

• PitaTen - This is an odd one. It's about a young kid in school

  who meets this girl who seems to be an angel. This show also prompted

  my recent post "How come?". I'm not quite sure what I think of this.

  It may be just a bit to cute for me.

• Alien 9 - It's got a very catchy theme song, but I'm still not

  sure what I think of this 4 episode OVA. I've seen the first two

  episodes and the second was kind of enjoyable and more then a little

  disturbing. I want to see the rest before I pass final judgement on

  it. Oh, and the main character is even whinier then Akari from BAV

  (which makes it fairly painful at times).

That's it for now. I think I'll post updates on what I'm watching

now and then with comments, just to add some flavor to my blog.

My parents have the exact same problem with their oven. This article really resonated with me. We've forgotten the KISS rule with so many things in life.

Btw, with my parents oven, once it stops working one of them has to go down into the basement and turn off the power going to it then turn it back on, and it will work.

It seems there may be a problem with the host that forwards my email to me. This is one of those times I'm not too stressed about things. I get the service through a friend of mine, I know he'll work on it because his mail goes through the same service (I'm assuming :)). Anyways, if you are trying to send me email and it is bouncing, this is why.

Note to self. Ask him what the best way to report problems is.

Faisal.com posted something that explains some of my thoughts on my blog. It's the Life Cycle of your Weblog. I know I've been around that loop a few times.

Haagan Daaz has re-released one of my favorite flavors. They used to have a flavor that was vanilla ice cream with chocolate fudge swirl with chunks of brownie. It used to be one of my favorites. Then they stopped selling it in stores (I think you could still get it at their places in malls). Tonight I was in Store 24 and noticed they had it again. And this time it was in a little mini-container, with a spoon included.

Just what I needed for that sugar craving I've been having.

When you go onto the lung transplant waiting list they start watching your overall health fairly carefully (Actually, this is probably true for any transplant). One thing they've found is that people tend to lose a lot of bone density right after transplant. I think the number I remember hearing was as much as 50%. As a result, one of the tests you get when being evaluated is a bone density scan. When I first had it done, my bone density was just fine. Since I am on prednisone, the doctor I went to had scheduled a second appointement a year later so that she could see how I was doing (long term prednisone use can affect bone density). We found that my bone density had dropped 2%. Which was higher then it should have been. As a result I'd been perscribed a drug called Actonel. It's an osteoperosis drug to help prevent bone density loss.

So, this morning I started in on a new drug. Luckily I only have to take it once a week, because it's kind of a pain. I have to take it when I've first woken up, with 6-8 oz of water, and remain upright for at least 30 minutes afterwards. I also shouldn't eat for at least 30 minutes so that it gets absorbed completely.

Groucho Marx. "She got her looks from her father. He's a plastic surgeon."

[Quotes of the Day]

The Utne Reader Online has an Emotional Intelligence test online. I tend to not like tests like this because my actual response to more then half the questions wasn't listed. Well, that and I didn't score real highly.

I'm on a slowdown of buying CDs. But I just replaced my copy of Obituary Column (Ha) by Moev. Or at least I ordered a copy of it. So I should have it soon enough. It's nice to be replacing a bunch of music from another time in my life. It makes be feel a bit nostalgic.

I keep thinking I should start a list of all the CDs I'd like to track down, since so many of them seem to be either only imports or out of print. Figures.

I'm not asleep again. I think right now it must be allergies that are helping to keep me up. Unfortunately when I can't sleep and it is three am I tend to think too much.

On the plus side, I'm having breakfast with two good friends in 7 hours. Quite cool since I'm always telling people to call me for breakfast and they never do.

How come in almost every Anime series I watch the main characters parents (or at least one of them) died in a horrible accident? Sheesh.

It looks like there might be a 2nd Mahoromatic series. Which would be great since the first one just kind of ends with lots of questions (and IMHO lots of things that just don't quite make sense).

Amazon is linking up with another brick and mortar store.  This time it's Borders.  You'll be able to buy a book online and pick it up at a local store.

I love this feature in stores.  I've only used it once, but when you're looking for something and the stores aren't real close to you it is nice knowing that you can go to the store and get what you want.

I've been playing about with a lot of alternate browsers lately.  I always have.  While IE works for so many sites I go to, I like seeing what else is out there.  Time has a nice article about Mozilla.  I've got to echo the author's feelings on it.  It's a pretty stable browser at this point.  They're still cleaning little bits and pieces up but it feels nice.

The program I mentioned yesterday, "Zoe", looks pretty cool, but I just realized this morning that it would probably be useless for me. Why? I read all my own email off of my own mail server. All my filtering happens on the server and I use IMAP to get at it. Last I checked, POP doesn't support it. Companies need to start looking at support of things like IMAP when doing email products. I could very much see the day when one of the appliances in your home is a server that you toss in the closet and then access remotely.

Dave had two links I found pretty interesting yesterday. The first was an essay by Meg Hourihan about using personas in the development process. The second was a article about people hacking various p2p software and the reactions of the companies who put out the software. There's an interesting relationship between these two articles. They both have to do with knowing who your customers are and what they want (or don't want).

Radio geekage - That link to my past post about Zoe was my first time trying out the shortcut feature in Radio. It's cool!

Ended up waking up much too early. Here's what I heard as I was waking:

• Power of Love - Frankie Goes to Hollywood

• Lies - Thompson Twins

• Addiction - Skinny Puppy

• I Like Noise - Euphoria

• The Whole Point of No Return - The Style Council

• What Difference Does it Make? (Peel Session) - The Smiths

• Vanity Kills - ABC

• Open Mind - Moev

It's Friday again, and that means it is time for Heather's Friday Five:

1. What are your hobbies? Let's see: Reading, hunting for anime to download off the net, DJing (it's a hobby and a second job), working on my web site.

2. Do you collect anything? If so, what? I collect molds, spores and funguses. Well, no I don't. I just always wanted to say that. I don't collect anything beyond dust.

3. If there a hobby you're interested in, but just don't have the time/money to do? Oh yes. I've wanted to get into Geocaching or Letterboxing for the past year or so. It's a combination of lack of time/money and the difficulty of hiking around to do these things.

4. Have you ever turned a hobby into a moneymaking opportunity? I guess kind of with DJing. Since when I get gigs I usually get paid.

5. Besides web-related stuff (burbs, rings, etc.), what clubs do you belong to? Hmm. None.

You can find the Friday Five at http://fridayfive.org.

WTF! It's SNOWING out. That is so wrong. It's almost May! It's April showers bring May flowers. Not April snows!

First Adam, then John Robb, mentioned Zoe, so I decided to take a look.  This actually looks quite cool.  I'm considering taking a look at it, even if it does just support POP.  In some ways this reminds me of some of the things Creo is doing with Six Degrees.

Every once in a while the internet just blows my mind.  Not that it is anything special, it's just the things it lets people do.

I've been getting a lot of fansubbed anime online lately.  Basicly what people do is get ahold of the a show or movie and they translate it and lay the subtitles onto it.  They they make it available online.  This has been going on for a while.  The thing that suddenly blew my mind was realizing that the show I'd just been watching (Chobits) had actually aired for the first time under a week before.  So basicly people are getting a copy of it right away, translating it, and putting it up online within days of it.  This means that we're able to get a sampling of shows in almost realtime.

Of course the downside is now I probably will have to wait forever for these shows to come out on dvd here.

Ugs, I'm struggling this week. I don't feel like working at all. I think some of it is allergies. In the last day I feel like they've suddenly slammed me pretty hard. Either that or I'm getting sick. I'm not sure which I'd hope for more ;).

Garrison Keillor. "I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it."

[Quotes of the Day]

A cosmic extravaganza is unfolding in the night sky. Gaze west after sunset and you'll see Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn bunched closely together. What does this rare gathering symbolize for you? It means you have a chance to intensify and refine all your uniquely Scorpionic powers. I suggest the following: Identify where your selfish desires overlap with the needs of your collaborators; penetrate surface appearances and explore what's really going on beneath; and purge any bad, hurt, or twisted feelings that interfere with your ability to tap into the beautiful heart of your emotional power.

(-- thanks to Free Will Astrology --)

Zannah has a link to a guide to getting laid in japan. I thought it was a pretty funny read myself.

It's like Netflix, but for Video Games!  I may just have to sign up for this.

I've got to say that Chobits is quite cute, and has one of the catchiest opening theme's I've heard in a bit. Thankfully I was able to download it yesterday. I'm getting deeper into Earth Girl Arjuna. I really enjoy it so far, but it tends to make me very pensive. Though I think that is a good thing. And it is one of the few things I've watched lately where I find myself so transfixed that at the end of the show it feels like no time has gone past.

It is once again making me think about anime making more of an entry into the US. I'd love to see something like Arjuna be released here, but I wonder how well it would do. At times it does get a little preachy, but it never seems to go overboard (at least for me, tolerances may vary.

On the note of things being released over here. I arranged to get two tickets for Escaflowne while it showing here. Supposedly The Brattle is getting it for a whole week. I'm quite curious about it because it is supposed to be quite different from the TV series.

James Thurber. "I used to wake up at 4 A.M. and start sneezing, sometimes for five hours. I tried to find out what sort of allergy I had but finally came to the conclusion that it must be an allergy to consciousness."

[Quotes of the Day]

I'm ditching rehab this morning. Primarily because I've got a sinus headache right now that is killing me and working out in the last thing in my mind. Of course it will probably be gone by the time I have to leave for work. Too frustrating. I think allergies aren't really hitting me THAT hard this year, just hard enough to be annoying in little ways like this.

First the bad.  My kitchen sink.  I'd mentioned this a few weeks ago.  I still hadn't heard anything from my landlord in over a week, so I called again today.  I found out they are going to have to replace my whole sink.  Which kind of sucks because I have to clean everything off of it and clean it out.  In some ways this is good because it was old and I like the idea of getting a new sink, maybe I can even get a garbage disposal.

The good.  Blue Cross Blue Shield.  These guys rock.  I'm supposed to be taking Actonel to help with my bone density, but up until a month ago BCBS didn't cover it.  So I'd been working with my doctor to have them make an exception.  It turns out they update their drug coverages on April 1st and Actonel is now covered! This is the second time this has happened with a medicaiton I've been perscribed.  I really like how well they keep adapting to my medical needs.

Ever felt like complaining to a telemarketer?  Or maybe just abusing them a little bit? Newsday has an article about a comedian who "went undercover at a telemarketing convention in the nation's capitol Monday to turn the tables on an industry he loves to hate. "

I especially love the bit about some of his conversations with telemarketers (like the burial plot one).

Adam posted more pictures of the Rotorjet flight crew.  I've never been on a helicopter, maybe this is an excuse to take a trip.  ^_^

Ralph Waldo Emerson. "Children are all foreigners."

[Quotes of the Day]

I just got into work and right now I just want to crawl right back into bed.  I was sleeping so wonderfully last night and just didn't want to wake up this morning.  At least it will be partly sunny today, and getting better all week.

This weekend I was at HMV and noticed that they had copies of the Amelie soundtrack that were bundled with a VCD of it.  I have to admit I was pretty tempted because it wasn't that expensive at all.

Anyone here know much about VCD?  I think I got most of my questions answered already, but any input helps.

Alice Kahn. "For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three."

[Quotes of the Day]

jenett.radio has a link to a CNET story about people who click on things they may not want to:

Stop! Look before you click.  Mark Hochhauser, a psychologist who specializes in the readability of online documents, explains why Web surfers mindlessly click on contracts that could hijack their computers or make them targets of aggressive advertisers.  [CNET News.com]

It seems ad-supported software preys on people's urge to try to get something for nothing. Do these adware companies appeal to our lowest urges?
Yes. Anything that says "free," people want. But eventually people will realize there's not really such thing as "free" software. It comes with a price--in this case the annoyance of advertising, or possibly privacy violations.

Well said... [jenett.radio]

I actually think this also ties into this basic level of trust people seem to have in the Internet.  It's like the people who will open up any attachment sent to them just because someone told them it was cool or it was from someone they know.  They could have been told 30 times not to open a file called 'foo.exe' but as soon as they see it they can't keep from opening it.

What the heck is going on.  It was in the 90s last week and now it's raining and snowing some.  I just don't get it.

I want spring! Real spring! not just a little tease of a spring.

Anime on DVD has a bunch of news from Anime Central that made me happy. Newly licensed series include Noir and Angelic Layer. Yay! I was hoping for news like this. I have high hopes for ADV giving Noir a good treatment.

Voltaire. "God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh."

[Quotes of the Day]

Another snap of time in Audiotron shuffle-play:

• The Medicine Show - Big Audio Dynamite

• God O.D. (Part 2) - Meat Beat Manifesto

• Walk Away - Sisters of Mercy

• Heresy - My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult

• The Leopard - Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians

• Surprise Me Again - Haircut 100

• Temple of Love - Sisters of Mercy

It feels like the start of an odd day.

I didn't get around to it yesterday, so here's my answers to the Friday Five this week:

1. What's your favorite TV show and why? Farscape. I love sci-fi shows and I think Farscape is one of the best written and produced ones ever. Last night's episode was stunning.

2. Who is your favorite television star? Hmm. That's a good question. I don't know that I could narrow it down to just one.

3. What was your favorite TV show as a child? Oh. I remember a few I loved (though they probably sucked and I'd hate them these days). Let's go for something wacky like 'Voyagers'.

4. What show do you think should have been cancelled by name? Any of the various 'reality tv' type shows. Fear Factor would be a good first choice.

5. What new show do you hope escapes the axe this season? I haven't really been watching any new shows except Enterprise. And I don't really care that much about it, but I guess I would rather it stick around for another season.

You can find the Friday Five at http://fridayfive.org/

One year ago today. I'd just gotten my laptop bag, which is still holding up amazingly. It still looks almost new.

So this morning I woke up really early. I didn't sleep well last night at all. I've been up for about 15 minutes and I'm sitting my couch and suddenly I feel like I'm moving. I look around and am like "what the fuck?" Then I hear my building itself creaking a little.

I wasn't sure what it was at the time. I figured I was still half asleep and maybe my equilibrium was a little off. Then, on the way home from breakfast I hear there was actually a quake! It sounds like it happened in New York (I think they said around Plattsburgh?). It figures, I live out in California for years and never feel a tremor. I move to Boston, and I get an earthquake.

Updated: I found the report on CNN about the earthquake.

I was skimming my logs and found that today someone got to my site by searching for 'Cardcaptor Recipies'. I really wonder just what they were looking for. Lyn suggested that people were wondering how long to keep Sakura on the broiler or that maybe people wanted Kero-chan kebobs. Ever notice how Sakura's always feeding him all kinds of sweets? She's just fattening him up for the slaughter!

Of course now I want to search for that too and see what comes up.

All but one of these was bought used, so quite cheaply!

• Duran Duran - Rio

• My Lie with the Thrill Kill Kult - Kooler than Jesus

• Quadraphonia - Cozmic Jam

• Malcolm McLaren - Fans

• General Public - Classic Masters

• Scritti Politti - Cupid & Psyche '85

Quite a nice haul if I do say so myself. I was really psyched about the Malcolm McLaren one because it has Madam Butterfly on it. It looks like a bunch of his stuff has been rereleased lately, so I may have to grab some more stuff too.

Mozilla 1.0 release candidate 1 has been released. There are even binaries for OS X on the download page. I'm downloading it right now and figure I'll give it a bit of a try for a week. I'll report back when I know what my feelings on it are.

Groucho Marx. "It isn't necessary to have relatives in Kansas City in order to be unhappy.

[Quotes of the Day]

Well, I made it to pulmonary rehab today too. It was so hard to pry myself out of bed this morning though. First off, it's my off Friday. Secondly it was just grey and icky out this morning and I really wanted to just crawl right back into bed.

I'm glad I'm working on going more often though. I need to start pushing myself a little harder though. The better shape I'm in, the easier recovery from the transplant will be when it happens. It's one of the things the transplant clinic really stresses for people on the list.

Why do I always seem to wake up for a bit between 2:30 and 3. It doesn't depend on when I went to sleep really. Weird.

I love General Tso's chicken.  This article actually talks about General Tso and his chicken.  The question I have is where all the variant names come from.  Many places I've lived have slightly different names for it.  For instance, I've found it called General Gau's chicken in a few places in Boston.

One rainy night last January I went to bed at 8. My house was messy, I was coming down with a cold, and three credit card bills from holiday shopping sprees had arrived earlier that day. For a while I slept soundly. When I awoke from a bad dream, it was pitch black. The power had gone out: The dial of my bedside clock was dark. Outside, the storm's drizzle had grown to a downpour. Strong winds slammed tree branches against the house. Then, amazingly, a bird began singing a cheerful tune. Unfazed by the pummeling gale and deluge, it took its time as it calmly unleashed a sinuous, buoyant stream of riffs. I predict that this week, Scorpio, you will experience an equivalent miracle.

Tuesday as I was on my way back to the office from lunch I took the highway. As I came to the end of the exit ramp I noticed, sitting on the median. A bottle of ketchup, a HUGE squeeze dispenser of mustard, and a jar of relish. Just sitting there. Nothing else around them.

Why where they there? Who would put them there? It seems like an odd place to be having a picnic. And if it was a picnic they left no other signs of it.

Jean-Paul Sartre. "Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do."

[Quotes of the Day]

The Shifted Librarian has a link to NME's list of the most influential artists of the last 50 years. I thought it was pretty interesting. They based it on a number of factors that had to do with the artists various appearances and mentions in NME.

The top 10 is as follows:

1. The Smiths

2. The Beatles

3. Stone Roses

4. David Bowie

5. Sex Pistols

6. Oasis

7. Radiohead

8. Paul Weller/The Jam

9. U2

10. Public Enemy

The more I think about this, the more I think the list is pretty accurate, at least with who is on it. I think the ordering is debatable. I was quite happy to see Paul Weller/The Jam on there myself. I'd actually like to see 11-20 myself. I think the top 20 would give a more interesting view of things. There are lots of people I would expect to see there.

You're awoken by thunder setting off car alarms. Wow!

Found this cute test over on Nari's page. You too can find out what your PokŽname is:

Your PokŽname is: Squirfu

Profile You live in the snowy valleys of Nunavut, and your diet consists mostly of donuts, TV dinners and coffee.

Characteristics:
(Combat and Non-combat): You can puke maple syrup. You can shoot sledgehammers. You can shoot hot death. You have intimate knowledge of kung fu. You can throw jet fuel. You can puke electricity. You can shoot ice bolts. You have a fear of acid. You have scaly skin.
Natural Enemies: Your natural enemy is Humbar.

I got back on track with rehab today.  I really do tend to feel better when I've exercised in the morning.  I'm not sure why it takes so much for me to pry myself out of bed to go.  Well, that's only half true.  The big reason is that I have to go in the morning, which means waking up way too early and getting there by 7 so that I can get into work at a reasonable amount of time.

I did hear a song on my iPod this morning that I'm going to put up later.  It's one of those songs that always makes me smile when I hear it.

Nathaniel Borenstein. "The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause accidents."

[Quotes of the Day]

Wow. The weather has certainly shifted suddenly. It went from being quite cool to suddenly quite warm and hot. It's 6am and already 67 degrees (19 C). My apartment warmed up pretty quickly already. I'm sure it will cool back off again, but this weather already feels quite wonderful :). I'm going to wear shorts today!

o I'd joined up with audible.com a while back, over a year and a half ago. And I'd used them for quite a while. But then I got OS X and they don't support it at all, so I decided to cancel my account there. Here's the email I just got back (that has my request to cancel).

Hello Gregory,

Thanks for your message about canceling your AudibleListener membership. I have cancelled your plan, but if you'd take just a moment to communicate with me, I would really appreciate it. Audible is a young company that has become completely dedicated to making its customers happy. We usually do make tens of thousands of people happy every day and we retain most of our members, so we really feel the loss of even one customer.

If you would take a moment to tell me why you want to cancel, I would really appreciate it. Did you have any technical issues or pricing issues?

Please feel free to email me directly at with your comments and give me a time when it would be convenient to call you back.

Customer Service Email Info:

Username: (censored)

First Name: Gregory

Last Name: Blake

Email: (censored)

Phone Number: (censored)

Problem Category: Account Information

Memo:

Please cancel my account.

I am on a mac running OS X and currently there is no support for this platform and it doesn't make sense for me to keep paying for something I can't use.

Thank you

gregory blake

I just love form letters, especially ones that don't make sense. I'm not sure how they can misunderstand my technical issues. Their product doesn't work with my OS. And I like how they ask me to email them, but then don't provide their email address. Come on folks. At least if you are going to send out form letters be complete about it.

I'm tempted to just reply to the letter saying, "sure, call me. I'll tell you the same thing I did in my original request. It doesn't work on my computer so I don't want it anymore."

A big thanks goes out to my online friend Lyn for uploading episodes of Earth Girl Arjuna.  It's going slowly, but they are coming along about one a day.  Thank you!

And in the theme of spring, here's a site to check out that I think says it all.

Christophe Bruno wondered 'how can I lose money with my art?' In the end he "decided to launch a happening on the web, consisting in a poetry advertisement campaign on Google AdWords ." The result of this experiment can be found at The Google AdWords Happening. With all the neat things happening on the technilogical side of Google, it's cool to see something using it in an inventive way.

Arthur Miller. "Everybody likes a kidder, but nobody lends him money."

[Quotes of the Day]

Lately I have been including links to Amazon when refering to books and movies I have bought/read/watched. Is it considered bad form to have those links earn me $$ if someone decides to buy the book?

Amazon has its Associates Program. Which lets you have links to amazon products on your site. If someone clicks through to the product, then decides to buy it, you get a small cut of sale. While I don't think I'd go out of my way to list things just on the hope of someone buying something, I do post links to books quite often.

So the question is, is this considered a good or bad thing? Or does it not matter at all?

Well, the latest version of nethack has been released for OSX. It's pretty good, but I wish someone would get a version built for command line. I don't see why they only relased a graphical version.

My friend Lyn pointed me at the Toastyfrog Thumbnail Theatre. It includes a great retelling of Evangelion. Thanks Lyn! I needed this!

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I got these lights a while ago, but finally decided to put them up someplace.

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<%radio.macros.imageref ("images/digiblog/041502-light-th.jpg", "light", vspace:5)%>
I haven't posted anything to the digiblog in a while, so here are some new images.

As one can tell from my posts over the weekend, the weather here was amazing. It is finally SPRING! I got to enjoy the sun. It was sooo nice. Being spring I also started to get into a spring cleaning kinda mood. I've been cleaning my apartment little by little and it is finally starting to look a bit better. The one thing I need to do is rewire everything so that the wiring looks more clean. But that's a pain in the ass, so I'll put it off till I get a new entertainment unit.

I was fairly anti-social this weekend too. I was possibly going to hang out with Susan if our schedules happened to sync up, but they didn't seem to. Which was just fine. I liked that I was able to spend the time slowly making my apartment an acceptable place to have people visit.

Worked through a bunch of anime this weekend. I finished up Mahoromatic (enh, I thought it was a decent series, but it didn't blow me away), watched of Read or Die (I will have this when it comes out on video), the first episode of Kodomo no Omocha (uh... i have no idea what to say about this), and a Earth Girl Arjuna (wow!). Finally am catching up to all the stuff I've downloaded.

I have today off. It's not a vacation day, it's a state holiday: Patriots Day. What is Patriots Day? Actually, I wasn't sure until just a few minutes ago when I looked it up online. According to this (old) article "Massachusetts and Maine celebrate Patriots Day in honor of the battles and skirmishes that began our fight for independence."

Looking around I also found an article over CNN about Patriots day and other smaller holidays. And here's another article discussing various small state holidays.

This day has also become well known because it is when the Boston Marathon is run.

Text Arc provides a whole new way of looking at texts. According to their site it "is a tool to aid in the discovery of patterns and concepts in arbitrary texts by leveraging a power and underutilized resource -- human visual processing." When you choose a text, it writes out the whole story in a spiral, then shows words from the text in the center of the spiral. It then forms all kinds of connections between words based on how often it is used and where in the text it is. It's pretty keen.

Things like this make me wish I was back in school. I could have so much fun with something like this.

Will Rogers. "Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save."

[Quotes of the Day]

I can sit out on my doorstep with my laptop (like I am now). And be on the net and enjoying the sunlight. It could be a tad warmer, but it isn't that bad at all.

Here's the songs the Audiotron was spitting out this morning as I was getting ready to head out:

• Something's Burning - Stone Roses

• Warsaw - joy Division

• Happy Meal - The Cardigans

• Opportunities ( Let's make lots of money) - Pet Shop Boys

• Corsican Corrider - Noir Soundtrack 1

• Captivate - Nitzer Ebb

• Butterfly - Knockin' on Heaven's Door soundtrack

• Murder - Yoko Kanno (Vision of Escaflowne soundtrack)

• All you need is Love - JAMS

• Enough Said - Devo

So there's yet another glipse into my audio life :) (sorry, no links to tunes this time)

Wow, two mornings of waking up fairly early. And two mornings of it looking quite beautiful out. Rosebud doesn't open for another 30 minutes, but I think I'm going to head out early with my camera and try and get some pictures. The forcast says mostly cloudly, but it certainly doesn't look like that right now. It's quite light out. We'll see what it is like when I get outside.

I've been sampling a whole bunch of different anime lately. I just watched the first episode of Earth Girl Arjuna. I'm not quite sure what I think of it. It was pretty trippy at times. But it looked like it had a bit of potential to be something interesting. Almost like a more intense magical girl show. The animation was very striking, and the music. Well, you can't go wrong when Yoko Kanno is doing the soundtrack, can you? I'm going to have to try and find more. (Anyone have any I can download or that they can upload?)

Okay, this disturbs me. I don't quite know why you'd want one that long. Or even how they make it that long (I think that scares me more). Do we really need things like this?

The air has that energy to it tonight. It feels like it is going to storm out. I kind of hope it does. I love spring thunderstorms. There's just a level of raw energy to them that is great. Right now there's a nice breeze coming through my window.

The army now has an almost indestructable sandwich. Designed for soldiers, it has a shelf life of three years. Hey, that's almost as good as Twinkies!

George Bernard Shaw. "The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it."

[Quotes of the Day]

I watched the first episode of Read or Die earlier tonight. Prior to viewing this I really didn't know much about it. I had read a review and a friend of mine had gotten me a copy of the three episodes of it.

It has a kind of action/spy movie feel to it. The pacing of it is wonderful, drawing you into the action as it builds. When the first episode was over I was hungry for more. I'm taking my time in watching though since it is only three episodes.

Today my copy of Porco Rosso arrived from CD Japan.  I love that I have a region selectable DVD player.  And I love that Studo Ghibli is releasing all this stuff on DVD (with english subtitles even).

I'm back off to work after two days off. It was actually a very relaxing two days. I'm glad I had the excuse to take them off. Now I have one day of work, then a three day weekend. MA has this wonderful holiday called Patriots day, and we actually get it off this year.

I'm hoping to get my set up soon, but I don't have immediate access to a mini-disc player. I'll be able to get one beginning of next week though. So it will be soon! (I kind of want to hear how it went myself.)

1. What is your favorite restaurant and why? Oh my. Good question. Well, in the Boston area, my favorite is Olives. I have a weakness for funky, kind of trendy places. I think the food here is amazing, even if the place is a bit loud usually.

2. What fast food restaurant are you partial to? That's easy. In 'n Out. I so wish they existed on the east coast. Mmmm, nothing like a double double animal style (with no tomatos).

3. What are your standards and rules for tipping? I usually tip pretty well. I waited tables for a bit as a second job and know how hellish it can be. As a result though, if a waitperson does a very poor job and is rude they will get a very small tip.

4. Do you usually order and appetizer and/or dessert? Appetizer: Sometimes. Depends on the restaurant and how hungry I am and if I'm splitting it with people. I almost never get one by myself.

5. What do you usually order to drink at a restaurant? These days, water. Sometimes I'll get a cocktail/beer/wine, but not that often.

The friday five is at http://fridayfive.org/" (Though I was having trouble getting to it at that address, so you can also try this link to get there).

Laurence J. Peter. "Against logic there is no armor like ignorance."

[Quotes of the Day]

��

The first online dating show? ���Blind Date Blog. This sounds a little bit too much like survivor meets those HORRIBLE late-night dating shows. The ones that if I see the first five minutes I can't stop watching.

Updated: The same guy has also done SurvivorBlog

In my wanders on the Web, I came across a document titled, "Tech Support for Etch A Sketch." Here's an excerpt. "Question: My Etch A Sketch has a distorted display. What should I do? Answer: Pick it up and shake it. Q: Help! My Etch A Sketch has funny little lines all over the screen. A: Pick it up and shake it. Q: How do I delete a document on my Etch A Sketch? A: Pick it up and shake it. Q: How do I turn my Etch A Sketch off? A: Pick it up and shake it." I've quoted extensively from this manual, Scorpio, because it provides all the advice you'll need in dealing with your current dilemmas. The best answer to every question, starting with "How can you get your life back on track?" is: Pick it up and shake it.

You know, it kind of feels like I've been doing that some these days.

[-- Thanks to Free Will Astrology --]

You too can be a god. Go and zap people until you smile. Stolen shamelessly from zannah.

Oscar Wilde. "Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong."

[Quotes of the Day]

So here's what I played last night.

• Running - Dj Blackstone & Amit Shoham

• Protozoans - Hakan Libdo

• Chapter Four - Gaetano Parisio

• After the Rain - Retroflare

• Harmonizer - Jose Nunez

• Free - Joe Silva

• One Last Time - Quivver

• No Exit - Sonic Implosion

• Totality (Shine) - Dietrich Schoenemann

• Spaced Invader - Hatiras feat Slarta John

I think i got the order right. I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet.

First off, a big thanks (AGAIN) to my friends Jill and Bree. WIthout the two of them tonight would probably have been great, but I would have been coughing for at least an hour after I left (instead of about 10 minutes). Thanks also to Rachel, Mike Wilkins, Dave Skye, Blake, Susan, and everyone else who helped out tonight. Thanks to all my friends who came out.

Tonight was lots of fun. I was so psyched. As with just about every set there are things I wish could have been tighter, but I'm so psyched that it went so well. I love spinning at the Phoenix Landing.

Other hilites of the night include Steve Porter's set, Dave Skye's opening set (that had some really wacky tracks in it), the Phoenix Landing almost completely empty of smoke! What a concept!

I'll post the track list after I sleep.

I added a new blog to my blogrolling today. Pure, Unadulterated Psychobabble is a blog I ran into a few times lately. I commented on it today and got back a response from the author, so am trading links.

Here's the announcement for tonight:

Tonight at the Phoenix Landing we've got two of Boston's best DJs playing together. I think their respective styles complement eachothers extremely well and I expect the beats will be off the hook.

STEVE PORTER - Known the world over for his original productions and DJ sets. Deep, funky, techy progressive. Receiving considerable support from the likes of Chris Fortier, Sasha & Digweed, & John Debo, and certainly among those leading the charge to put Boston on the map.

GREGORY BLAKE - One of my personal favorite local DJs. Really knows how to start a fire on the dance floor. A motivating mix of tech house and deep progressive.

PLEASE NOTE: We have a special request of all of our friends tonight. As you may or may not know, our friend Gregory is waiting for a new lung. However, until he gets one, he is stuck with his old lung and it is difficult for him to breathe. Smoke makes this even harder. So we're asking everyone who goes to the Phoenix Landing tonight to NOT smoke! Our friend deserves to have a good time and spin his set without having to be uncomfortable. For some of you this may be a lot to ask, but we ask never the less because we know that the Phoenix Landing crowd is caring, understanding, and the best that this city has to offer. I hope you'll all cooperate if you can. Granted we can't keep strangers or everyone from smoking, but if even just our friends and the regulars try not to smoke for just a few hours, then it will help. We thank you in advance and there will be lots of gum/candy for you all to suck on instead.

Thanks to Bree for initiating the Don't Smoke for Greg campaign.

*******************************************

Wednesdays at The Phoenix Landing

House Music and Techno, as interpreted by

Resident DJs CASEROC, SHALAKO, & DAVID SKYE

10PM / $5 / 19+

512 Massachusetts Avenue, Central Square

Cambridge MA USA Tel. +1 617 576 6260

I'm really psyched for tonight. And I'm really overwhelemed that they are asking people not to smoke for me. While the smoke bothers me, spinning is important enough for me to deal with it once in a while. And I would never ask anyone not to smoke just for me. Thanks again to all of you.

Over on Kuro5hin, someone does an An In-Depth Analysis of the Cultural Ramifications Evidenced in the Power Girls.

Bubbles rules. I just don't agree with her as the blonde bimbo stereotype. She's the child of the group, the youngest of the power girls (and she acts that way).

Robert Orben. "Never raise your hand to your children; it leaves your midsection unprotected."

[Quotes of the Day]

From the New York Times:

Online Sales of Used Books Draw Protest. Authors are rebelling against new efforts by Amazon.com to spur sales of used books, a practice that has become a major source of revenue for Amazon but pays nothing to writers or publishers. By David D. Kirkpatrick.

I'm curious. Do used bookstores sell newer used books? What about them? All Amazon is doing is making it easier for people to find used books. This is similar to the whole argument about used CDs.

Devo's version of 'Head Like a Hole' has to be one of the most bizzare things I've ever heard. I was laying there in bed a few moments ago and heard the start of the song and once the words started I was like "what the heck IS this??" It woke me up enough that I had to go and look at the audiotron to see what was playing.

As usual, I'm a bit behind the times, but I just saw the japanese panasonic flash ad.  If you look in the directory there are also a number of other great ones (I like mouse.swf the best).

I think I'm going to be going around the rest of the day singing 'Hi-Ho! Hi-Ho!'

My friends rule.  They are always looking out for me.  Yesterday Bree and Jill decided that since the Phoenix Landing is so smokey they should start an anti-smoking campaign for tomorrow night.  I hopped onto bostonparties to see the following post

OK Kids...
This Wednesday two of my favorite DJs and people are playing the Phoenix Landing together and I am more than excited for this night... Steve Porter and Gregory Blake will grace the decks... HOWEVER... I have a special request of all of our friends on this night... Playing the Phoenix Landing has always been a dream for Gregory and opening for Steve is an added bonus. Meaning, this is a big night for him. As you may or may not know, our friend Gregory is waiting for a new lung. However, until he gets one, he is stuck with his old lung, which means it's hard for him to breathe. Smoke makes it even harder. SO, here's what I ask... Anyone who goes to the Phoenix Landing on Wednesday makes it a point to NOT smoke. Our friend deserves to have a good time and spin his set without having to be uncomfortable. For some of you, it may be a lot to ask, but I ask because I know that the Phoenix Landing crowd is caring, understanding and the best that this city has to offer and I know, you'll all cooperate if you can. Granted I can't keep strangers or everyone from smoking, but if even just our friends/ list members try and not smoke for just a few hours, then it will help. I thank you in advance nd I will even bring lots of gum/ candy for you all instead.

Much Love & Respect...
bree who is now officially launching the
NO SMOKE FOR GREGORY CAMPAIGN...
Please pass on the word...

This was just too cool.  And made me smile all day.  I love my friends so much. They rock.

I'm trying out the Recent posts feature in Radio now.

Browsing around randomly today I found one of the best plugins for a web browser:  The Irony Plugin.  IronyPlugins.com is <EM>"a charitable institution, founded in 1996, devoted to ensuring that standards of English comprehension are maximised throughout the World Wide Web."</EM>

Now all we need is a clue plugin, so that you can send the author of a webpage a clue when they need one.

Back when I was in high school my roommate and I always had music playing all night. We'd pop a CD in and have it on shuffle play all night long. Once I got used to it I loved it. It would be just loud enough that if you woke up some the music would drift into your dreams. It was pretty neat.

I got out of the habit of doing that until I got my Audiotron. Now I usually sleep with music playing. As I was waking up this morning I had a lot of songs just entwining with my half-awake state. And it helped me get up on time (I still haven't reset the clock by my bed yet).

Mae West. "You're never too old to become younger."

[Quotes of the Day]

Yet another sign of spring appeared this morning. I was awoken by the sounds of "No parking on the odd numbered sides of the road... street cleaning" repeated over and over and over again. I think they got their speaker fixed because I could actually make out the words. In the past I'd hear "No parking on the mumble mumble side of the road."

Also, slept through the night again tonight. Pretty nice. I was exhausted last night again.

CNET reports on the next stage of popup ads, popup downloads.  Instead of just popping up an ad, it also will ask you if you want to install software.  Now I know enough to click 'No' every time I get one of those things, but I wonder how many other people do.  Is Joe user on the street cluefull enough to say no?  Or will they just blindly click yes?

(I'd like to think they are cluefull enough, but I've seen way too many cases of people ignoring common sense when it comes to virus type things).

Braingle: Brain Teasers is a site that has a new brain teaser/puzzle every day.  Today's was pretty easy(IMHO): If the only brother of your dad's sister had a child, what would the childs relationship to you be?

The countdown to Wednesday is on. For those of you who haven't been reading, I'm spinning (DJing) this week at the Phoenix Landing. I'm opening up for Steve Porter. So, for all of my friends in Boston, come on down. I am guessing I'll go on around 10ish.

If you're curious about what I spin, you can find my mixes over on my DJ page. I recommend I, Gregory personally (though lots of people like Spring.

Jonathan Swift. "Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed."

[Quotes of the Day]

I went to sleep fairly early last night because I was exhausted from the weekend. So when I woke up this morning I was fairly rested (could have really used another two hours of sleep). But then I realized that I couldn't because I'd lost an hour. Bah.

On the plus side, it looks like it's going to be up in the 50s today.

I was sitting around watching TV late this afternoon when I heard a voice yelling, "Greg!" I looked outside and saw my old friend Tamson. Tamson's an old school friend/ex-housemate who recently moved back to MA from SoCal a few months back. I'd actually been wondering what she'd been up to since I hadn't heard from her since then.

We went out to Boca Grande and caught up while I had a steak quesadilla (Hmm, I should update my LJ with this!). She's gonna come back into town Wednesday night for my gig at the Phoenix Landing.

David Letterman. "USA Today has come out with a new survey - apparently, three out of every four people make up 75% of the population."

[Quotes of the Day]

Well, even if it isn't warm, it is a nice and sunny day out. This has been quite a long weekend, but it's felt really good. Friday was my off Friday, so after running a bunch of errands I decided to zoom down to my parent's place. It was good to get out of Boston for a bit. I hadn't seen my parents in a month or so, and I don't think I'd been down to CT in even longer then that.

Saturday I made my way back up to Boston. I had plans to hang out with some friends that night. After a quick nap and some sushi I was off to join Heather and Mike and Michelle over at Hartley for some quiet socializing. It was nice. I rarely get to see Mike and Michelle these days and I miss hanging and talking with them. Got back home this morning and now I'm ready for sleep. This weekend feels like it has helped me get a little back on track... finally.

W. C. Fields. "A thing worth having is a thing worth cheating for."

[Quotes of the Day]

I just got done watching episode 15 of Fruits Basket. I am really really enjoying this show, but this has to be one of the saddest episodes of any animated show I've seen. It definitely ranks up there in the top 5 sad anime moments. Once again, I've found a series that I will be buying as soon as it comes out. Luckily it's already been licensed in the US, so hopefully it won't be TOO long before we see episodes on DVD.

I just finished reading Anime: from Akira to Princess Mononoke by Susan J. Napier this morning. It's an interesting book that looks at various themes and concepts in Japanese animation. It's pretty good, though a little dry at times, and didn't go deep enough into some of the topics I was curious about. On the other hand it did help give me some more background on how anime relates to Japanese culture and history.

Some of the first games I ever played on a computer were the Scott Adams adventure games. They were some of the first IF games I ever saw. Here's a page that has java versions of all of them. I found this from a page Chris pointed me at that has links to free adventure & fantasy games. Many of the ones there are classics.

Since I didn't get around to it last week:

1. What are the first things that you do in the morning to start your day? Stumble around, get some water, brush teeth, sit down and grab laptop and browse through mail as I try and wake up a bit. Realize how late it is, jump in the shower and zoom to work.

2. What are the last things you do at night before going to bed? Hmm. Usually brush teeth, grab whatever book I'm reading and read a page or two before passing out.

3. What daily routine have you recently added to your day? I can't really think of anything. My day is pretty simple. Wake up. Work. Come Home. Sleep.

4. What routine do you wish you could get rid of? Um. Having to take all the medications I have to take each day. It's just kind of annoying to have to worry about it.

5. What's the one thing that makes you feel like something is missing if you don't do it some point within your day? Eating. I keep missing lunch and whenever I do I get all spacey at around 3:30 in the afternoon.

The Friday Five is found at http://fridayfive.org

Robert Byrne. "Partying is such sweet sorrow."

[Quotes of the Day]

I had never played a video game until recently. Then I bought "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." Having heard that vicious mayhem characterizes most games, I've been pleased to find that I don't have to kill anyone as I help Harry navigate his way through a series of non-violent conflicts. Even more delightful is how closely his experiences mirror the game of life. Harry and I sometimes have to repeat a lesson 20 times before we master it. There's no guidebook to study, so we have to figure everything out through trial and error. Best of all: The rules keep changing. What works to get us through one tight spot isn't necessarily relevant in the next one. Sound familiar, Scorpio? This is an apt description of your current situation.

<-- Brought to you by Free Will Astrology -->

Anyone remember Dark Tower?  That old game from Milton Bradley?

We were talking about it last night online and found a site that talks all about Dark Castle.  I know I had this game when I was a kid, but now I need to go and figure out if it is still around my parent's place somewhere.  I have a horrible feeling it was probably sold at some tag sale when I wasn't at home.  My parents even sold the Atari when I wasn't at home, they should have asked me first.

I'm sick of being single. I try not to gripe about it to people that often, but lately it's been bugging me more and more. Part of the problem is finding good places to even meet new people. The online dating service thing just doesn't really do it for me either. I've been single now for years and I haven't really met that many people I've even been interested in.

Okay, gripe over for now. I now return you to my normal babbling.

Serious Play is LEGOs for the corporate world. Their site was pretty interesting, but I really do wonder how many people I could actually get to buy into something like this at my workplace. I love LEGOs and keep thinking about buying a few sets to bring into work for people to just play with when they are by my desk.

Yes, I have issues with growing up :)

Louise Beal. "Love thy neighbour as yourself, but choose your neighbourhood."

[Quotes of the Day]

I'd been using DivOSX to view Divx movies on my Powerbook for a while and it worked pretty well. One problem though, was that it hadn't been updated in ages and ages. For those of us who've been looking to see such things improve, 3ivx Delta 4, Preview Release 1 came out recently. This release is really solid so far. Along with this I'd recommend getting Divx Doctor II

I'm in meeting hell these next few days.  I should start bringing my laptop to these so that I don't go completely crazy.

Thomas Pickering. "In archaeology you uncover the unknown. In diplomacy you cover the known."

[Quotes of the Day]

I just remembered a bad thing about spring. Allergies. I have a few friends who have started suffering from them and I wonder if this is going to be a bad year. At least it wasn't a very wet winter here, that should count for something.

I'm going to bring my powerbook into the mac store either today or tomorrow. It really depends on when I can get in there. I also have to make sure I get everything backed up before doing that. Just in case.

I've been a little quiet on here lately because I've just been a bit swamped and overwhelmed.  Or at least I've feeling that way.  I don't like ranting about work here, but I'll just say that there are days and people there that try my patience.

I'm feeling a little nervous about my gig coming up on the 10th.  I know I'll do fine, I just haven't had enough time to practice lately.  Luckily I have Friday off, and I'm taknig two days off next week.  I'll post a bit more later.

Mark Twain. "Good breeding consists of concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person."

[Quotes of the Day]

I am going to need to bring my laptop into the Apple store for them to send in for service. The DVD drive needs to be replaced. I'm kind of bummed about it because I use my laptop for everything. Email, as an organizer, for my blogging. I'm going to see about exporting stuff to my desktop so I at least have a copy there.

Edgar Allan Poe. "Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night."

[Quotes of the Day]

And I'm pretty sure it isn't an April Fools joke. It makes sense actually. Daypop is now ranking the most popular items on Amazon.com wish lists. There are lots of blogs out there with links to their wish list. (I know mine does). So I guess it should be titled 'Top Wish List Items of Bloggers.'

Updated: They first posted about this feature on March 14th

Google gives some insight into why their searches are so accurate. It's a good read. Talk about mind bombs. I'm sure there are some other applications for this technology.

Rabbit. Rabbit.

I just realized it is April 1. Does this mean I have to do the obligitory joke blog post?