March 2003 Archives

I was skimming through DVDtalk.com and ran into a reference to a movie called Winter Kills (imdb) being out on DVD. I was pretty psyched and quickly checked on Amazon to see if they had it, which they did. I saw this movie in high school for a film study thing a teacher of mine used to run. It's a wonderfully twisted conspiracy movie. It's got many holes, and the plot kind of jumps around at times (It feels like it could have been an even longer movie), but I still enjoy it when I catch it on TV. One of my favorite conspiracy movie moments is in this film, having to do with Jeff Bridges watching a woman ride by the car he's sitting and blowing a bubble (when you see the movie you'll know it when you see it).

Also, when looking at the page for Winter Kills, it was offered along with another movie from that very same film class, The Killers (imdb (1946)). Criterion has released a set that has both versions of the movie. Oh well, two more movies to add to my wish list.

I've got one more movie I want released on DVD: Head Office. I so want to do a double feature with that and Office Space.

Did a bit of ripping in the last few days. I was going through some old boxes and found a few CD3s from years and years ago ('88ish) that I included in this bunch too.

• Cowboy Bebop - Knockin' on Heaven's Door OST (w/cowgirl ED OST)
• Cowboy Bebop - OST 1
• Consolidated - Consolidated
• Consolidated - Hear and Now
• Big Audio Dynamite - No. 10, Upping St
• The Clash - London Calling
• Colourbox - Best of 82/87
• Colourbox - Colourbox
• John Coltrane - My Favorite Things
• Squeeze - Footprints CD3
• Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians - Ballon Man CD3
• OMD - Dreaming CD3

The thing that blew me away about the CD3s was that they were listed in CDDB. I guess for some reason I never expected these little singles CDs to actually end up in there. Pretty keen.

Today I found a notepad type app for OS X that is the closest to what I've been looking for in a generic note-taking app. It's called VoodooPad. Here's a bit of the description from the product page:

VoodooPad is a new kind of notepad. It's like having your own personal hypertext library, where you can jot down notes, web addresses, to-do lists... Anything on your mind. VoodooPad automatically links each page together, to form a miniature world wide web, on your desktop! Anybody familiar with the WikiWikiWeb will feel right at home with VoodooPad.

I love the whole Wiki aspect of it. It's kind of like having a personal single user Wiki for taking notes.

Back when this blog was managed using Radio, I had a number of categories for posts. One of those was for cooking related posts. When I moved over to Movable Type I ditched the categories because I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with them. Now I've created a new section for recipes.

It was actually quite the pain to get this set up. First, I've discovered that my archives are in pretty crappy shape. A bunch of the formatting got mucked up when I brought stuff over. I'm not fixing everything right away, but I'll be working on it as time goes by. I also discovered a post or two that didn't make it over for some reason. Very odd.

Here's a pretty good article on Raijin Comics Weekly. The article gets a few things wrong though. Raijin Comics Weekly is not the first Japanese manga to be translated to english (though it (or Shonen Jump) may be the first comic in this format to be translated)). It is amazing how much the manga market has grown in the last year though. The number of titles being translated is growing rapidly.

Personally I'm enjoying both Shonen Jump and Raijin. And as far as other titles I'm enjoying Marmalade Boy, Kare Kano, and Chobits quite a bit.

Port and Chocolate. Usually dark chocolate, but tonight I'm finishing off this chocolate bar that I got a while back as part of a bunch of different chocolates. This one is milk chocolate and macadamias. Mmmmmmmmmm. The only thing missing from tonight was ice cream (and not weird ice cream like in that last post).

I love ice cream. But I don't think I'd like any of these ice creams. I can't decide which one disturbs me the most though. (via Boing Boing)

Well, I had the first non-suicide casualty in the war on mice. Right before I went out to Dunkin Donuts today I glanced down at the snaptrap I'd gotten the other day. The mouse had eaten most of the peanut butter from it without setting it off. On one hand I was happy that it hadn't been killed, but on the other I was a bit frustrated. I had have a heart traps for months, and up until recently they'd never caught anything. So I finally decided to make the switch, and it wasn't working either.

I got home from Dunkin and was just about to whine to a friend of mine about how the mouse was winning the war when I glanced over towards the snap trap and it was upside down. I peeked more and saw the bottom half of the mouse sticking out from under it, feet up. Okay, I wasn't prepared for having to deal with this part. I'm not big on the whole killing thing. Oh well, hopefully this is the last one. Three mice, that's enough, right?

(Yes, I admit it, I'm a wimp.)

Before I try and go to bed (again), I just thought I'd point to a page with a review of the new Zelda game, as well as a page with some movies. This really is one of the best games I've played all year. Edges out Dark Cloud 2 by a bit (which I'm stalled on because I just can't kill this one boss).

I subscribed to Raijin Comics a while back because I'd picked up a number of issues at my local comic book store, but was just having trouble getting there every week to pick it up. A week or so ago I realized that I hadn't gotten an issue, so emailed them asking them to either send me a new one, or just extend my subscription by one issue.

I had included the message in the post, but decided to take it down since I noticed that at the bottom of the email there's a disclaimer that asks me not to republish the letter. Too bad, because their customer support really pulled through and I would have loved to have shared it with folks. The gist of the message was that they were sorry I didn't get the missing issue. And even though their policy was to just ship out a replacement, they'd bend the rules this time and extend my subscription by an issue (making it very clear that it was a one time thing and they don't normally do this).

I just felt I had to comment on it because to me it shows part of what good customer service is about, being flexible. The fact that they were able to make an exception for me this time shows that their support people aren't just droids who are following a script of how to deal with customer issues. They're thinking for themselves and working on keeping their customers happy. Even if it was just a one time way of helping, it still showed more thought then usual. And even if they were exaggerating a little about bending the rules, they still made this customer feel special. Oh, and they responded within two days of my emailing them. Not too shabby.

The second half of episode 15 of Fruits Basket still makes me sniffly and weepy after seeing it a whole bunch of times. Luckily the episode after is a fun one to cheer me up again.

I just listed myself with Blogshares. Follow the link on the image below to see the info on my page. Sign up and buy some shares of my blog!

(Oh, and it doesn't use real money. So feel free to buy and sell as much as you want.)

(Damn, I just realized my blog isn't worth enough to have shares yet. Rats!)

If I can whine for a moment.

I'm bored. Insanely bored. Bored with a capital 'B'.

Someone tell me a joke, or a story, or something.

The damn game knows me too well already. Read on a note on a wall:

Sturgeon's One-Point Lessons
Lesson Ten

Becoming the Champion of Life!
Learn all there is to learn in lessons one through nine...

And no matter what happens...
Do not give up, do not complain,
and do NOT stay up all night playing

So far the game is really cool. I was a bit skeptical about the animation style at first, but it's quickly grown on me. The movement is so fluid. Oh well, back to the game.

Never underestimate the power of soup.

Because I've lost at least a few months of my life to this game in the past 13 years...

I got all my errands done today. I actually didn't forget to get anything at the store for the first time in ages. I always seem to do that. It felt good to get fresh air and be outside. I'm feeling a little bit a spring fever, or maybe that's allergies. I'm going to pick up some meds tomorrow and see if that helps my sinuses at all (sinus headaches suck).

I also got to stop at Porter Exchange and grab some rice balls for lunch. I got the salmon ones as usual. They helped a lot since I really hadn't had much to eat all day long. I wish it was a little closer, it's kind of a pain to get to and the parking there can suck some days. I included a picture of the food court area inside Porter Exchange. I keep wanting to try more of the places in there, but I'm not sure which ones are good (or if they are just all good).

I'm so glad I have errands to run today. It looks so pretty out and I want to be able to enjoy the happy warmness a bit. I'm gonna bring my digital camera too so that I can get some nice pictures. Just need to write up a shopping list and take a quick shower first. Must not get distracted by shiny things.

From over on Lockergnome comes a link to The Grand List Of Console Role Playing Game Cliches. Too many of these are oh so true. Some of my favs:

2. "No! My beloved peasant village!"
The hero's home town, city, slum, or planet will usually be annihilated in a spectacular fashion before the end of the game, and often before the end of the opening scene.

14. Garrett's Principle
Let's not mince words: you're a thief. You can walk into just about anybody's house like the door wasn't even locked. You just barge right in and start looking for stuff. Anything you can find that's not nailed down is yours to keep. You will often walk into perfect strangers' houses, lift their precious artifacts, and then chat with them like you were old neighbors as you head back out with their family heirlooms under your arm. Unfortunately, this never works in stores.

136. Gender Equality, Part 1 (Feena Rule)
Your average female RPG character carries a variety of deadly weapons and can effortlessly hack or magic her way through armies of monsters, killer cyborgs, and mutated boss creatures without breaking a sweat. She may be an accomplished ninja, a superpowered secret agent, or the world's greatest adventurer. However, if one of the game's villains manages to sneak up and grab her by the Standard Female Character Grab Area (her upper arm) she will be rendered utterly helpless until rescued by the hero.

Speaking of which, I'm doing my best to avoid the pull of the new Zelda because I know I'll disappear for a day or so after starting.

Laurie Anderson: "Paradise is exactly like where you are right now...only much, much better" [Quotes of the Day]

It's too damn early. I don't want to be up. But I know if I crawl back into bed I'll never wake up in time to get to rehab today. I've been bad the last month and a half. I blame the cold I had really, but that only accounts for about a month of it.

I'm actually glad to be getting started exercising again. After about a week of starting up again I tend to find all the basic getting around stuff to be much easier. One of the theories behind pulmonary rehab is that when you are in shape your body needs less oxygen to do things. I can definitely tell the difference. It's kind of amazing.

Damn, my iPod is almost full and i still have around 15 to 20 CDs left to rip. How frustrating. I'm going to start having to come up with playlists of stuff to listen to that I'll sync. Smart Playlists help with this a lot actually. I have ones for 80s music, Jazz, and Anime soundtracks currently.

I feel like I'll get back from working out and pass out for half the day again. Bah. What's everyone up to this weekend? Anyone feel like hanging out and watching some DVDs tonight? Maybe a spur of the moment anime night?

If you live in MA (or TX, SC, FL, GA, AL, TN, or CO) and use a Firewall you should beware. It may become illegal if bills in those states pass. I just downloaded the MA one and am going to read through it tomorrow, but the blog entry linked to above says:

Here is one example of the far-reaching harmful effects of these bills. Both bills would flatly ban the possession, sale, or use of technologies that "conceal from a communication service provider ... the existence or place of origin or destination of any communication". Your ISP is a communcation service provider, so anything that concealed the origin or destination of any communication from your ISP would be illegal -- with no exceptions. [Freedom to Tinker]

Just to explain that a bit more. That would make most corporate firewalls illegal, along with those little mini firewalls they make for home. And don't forget just about any recent OS (since they do connection sharing). (via BoingBoing).

The HR Giger Museum has a Quicktime VR Tour of the museum online. Pretty cool. I like the Alien room the most I think. Though I think going to this museum might give me nightmares. (via BoingBoing)

Dick Cavett:"It's a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn't want to hear." [Quotes of the Day]

I was napping for a tiny bit this afternoon, but I kept hearing what sounded like scurrying sounds. Of course, when I saw that it was actually the sounds that people and bikes going by outside were making I felt foolish, but every time I layed back down I heard the sounds again. Now I'm not sure. Maybe the mice were actually making those noises to fuck with me. They're keeping me from sleeping. Making me tired and cranky so I'll make a mistake.

Wait. What was that noise?

Tonight at the Analog Lounge I'll be celebrating the capture of another mouse (I get to count the one committing suicide as a capture don't I?). I'll also be celebrating nice weather and the letter Q. Here's the deal. And definitely make note of next month's guests. I'm really psyched about April. We've got return appearances from MJ and Frantic. Defixio finally found a time she could grace us with her presence. And we've got Jeff Mission and Headrush coming out too. I think it will be a great way to start off the spring. So here's the details on tonight.

Changmian and Dubcoast present

*~The Analog Lounge~*
The relaxed side of things. Join us every Wednesday for a mix of musical styles in the lounge at Vertigo, with lots of mellow mixed in. Tonight is:

RESIDENT'S NIGHT!
That's right. Pete, Pete, and Gregory will be playing all the tunes tonight while the Special one is off travelling the world. After a nice warm sunny day (it's 61 out!) what a better way to relax than with a nice drink and some chill tunes.

(Also, check out our upcoming Guests below, April's gonna kick ass in the Lounge).

with resident dj's
Gregory Blake (Changmian) Boston
Special Pete (dubcoast music) CA
Peter Ellis (ttb) Boston
Pete Yagmin (Changmian) Boston

Wednesdays
@ Vertigo (upstairs)
126 State St. Boston, MA
617-723-7277
10pm - 2am
21+ with ID
$5 cover (gets you into both the Lounge and Anitya)
No dress code
www.changmian.com
www.dubcoast.com
www.vertigoboston.com
www.mapquest.com (directions)

Upcoming Guests:
04/02 - Jeff Mission [Beatfix : Circle] MA
04/09 - Frantic [Suburban Groove Project] MA
04/16 - MJ [AudioDreamControl : Satellite : Galanta.net] MA
04/23 - DJ Headrush [wbrs : djheadrush.com] MA
04/30 - Defixio [Redlight : punkrocktechno] MA
To view our calendar online (with support for you iCal and Mozilla calendar folk):
http://ical.mac.com/gblake99/The32Analog32Lounge
This week downstairs at Anitya: Binary (Sonic Beating/WBRS-Boston)12:30-2:00

Be there or be square.

Paolo had a feature request for Radio:

I don't know exactly whom should I send the request to, so I'm posting it here.

Most of posts that I write have a bunch of links. Usually I write the post first, then I add the links. Adding links usually implies:

1. Running a search on google
2. Copying the url of the page I want to link
3. Creating the link in the post

Something like 95% of the times, the link I'm looking for is the first match in the google's results page. Type any person name and his/her weblog are going to be the first hit. Type any product or company name, and the product or company sites are going to be the first hit.

Now... guess what I want? [Paolo Valdemarin Weblog: Feature Request]

Guess what I want too. But I want it in a slightly different form. I want to be able to hilite some text, copy it to the clipboard if necessary, run an Applescript on it (via Script Menu maybe?), and have the first link returned by google (or the one for 'I'm Feeling Lucky') put into the clipboard to be pasted. Even better, make it a service! Anyone know how hard this would be? Is this a good first project to for me in the Apple scripting/programming world?

Jules de Gaultier: "Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality." [Quotes of the Day]

Here's a track listing (artist - track - label) for the mix mentioned in the previous post:

1. Autocat - Gimmie the Beat - Yoshitoshi
2. M.R.I. - Nightclubbing at Home - forcetracks
3. Tijuna - Groove is in the air - Bedrock Records
4. Sphere vs T-Meck - Deep as Fuck - Teknology
5. Hakan Lidbo - Proton/Elektron - forcetracks
6. Mr. C + Tom Parris - Nice 'n' Nasty - Plink Plonk
7. D-Culture - Situation Hot - Tri Lamb
8. Sven Dedek - Sine - PV Records
9. D.A.V.E. the Drummer + Ant - Hydraulix 2 - Hydraulix
10. Paragliders - Change Me - Tranceportation
11. Thomas P. Heckman & Mark Romboy - Ultra Vixens - undercurrent
12. Trancesetters - Roaches - Hooj Choons

Thanks to the pointer in the comments of a recent post I was able to discover ScummVM. Most of the old Lucasarts adventures used the 'SCUMM' engine and ScummVM lets you play all those old games. I grabbed the version for OS X and have happily been playing Sam & Max again. YAY!

Another day, some more CDs done. Getting down into the Cs now finally. What trip it's been. Here's the latest batch.

• Comatose-Non-Reaction - Danielle Dax
• Blast the Human Flower - Danielle Dax
• Vol. 2 - Miles Davis
• Birth of the Cool - Miles Davis
• Sunmachine - Dario G
• Nothing Stays - Cyberaktif
• Gift - Curve
• Pubic Fruit - Curve
• Standing at the Sea - The Cure
• The Head on the Door - The Cure
• The Cud Band E.P. - Cud

Good stuff in this batch. Especially Cyberaktif, The Cure, Curve, Miles... ahhh. I found myself listening to a few of these as they ripped.

Really nice article gives a description of Trackback for beginners. This is pretty good and gives some really nice details as well as ways people are using trackback.

Gizmodo.com has a great post about Mena Trott getting support for her Sidekick.

My Sidekick has entered a "deep sleep" mode and can not be awoken by the fix of reseting/powering on or pressing the "@, 1, 0" keys at the same time. Customer support was a horrible pain in which I which I was flat-out blamed for "overcharging the device." The service rep told me that I should have watched the device charge and made sure to disconnect when it was done charging. To which I replied, "I'm supposed to sit and watch my phone charge?" Her reply: "Yes."

Now I don't feel so bad about waiting to get one. I have had one problem with my T68i and they are going to send me a new one. It took me a little bit to convince them the problem was the phone, but once I did it was smooth sailing. I'm actually waiting for the next generation of Sidekicks anyways. The kinks will hopefully be worked out and maybe we'll have some bluetooth support in there too.

One Year Ago Today I posted about trying to find the bird. It still makes me giggle.

Damn, I just read that the bookmarks side drawer in Camino is going away. I actually liked it a lot. I didn't realize it was so hated by people. I haven't seen how the new bookmark manager works, so I'll give it a chance though. Oh well, yet another reason to make sure I give some feedback on beta software that I really like.

Chris Pirillo posts the warnings on a label from an extension cord he bought today. I did good for the first few, but once we hit the warnings below, I realized I was soon to die. If you don't see posts from me for a few days it's because I've zapped myself.

do not plug one extension cord into another; avoid overheating; uncoil cord and do not cover it with any material; do not drive, drag, or place objects over cord; do not walk on cord. After use: grasp plug to remove from outlet; always store cord indoors; always unplug when not in use; do not unplug by pulling on cord; [C:\PIRILLO.EXE]

Alfred Adler:"It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them." [Quotes of the Day]

(at least I didn't screw it up today)

Tom Robbins: "Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature." [Quotes of the Day]

Not much to say. Big congrats to Hayao Miyazaki and Toshio Suzuki for Spirited Away. It was most deserved (if you haven't see it, do so when it gets re-released for getting an award). I still think the Kaufmans should have gotten best adapted screenplay. And it was cool to see Pedro Almodovar win an Oscar. More commenting if it strikes me later.

So, not more than an hour or two after putting the mouse to rest I look up to see (insert dramatic pause) ANOTHER MOUSE staring at me. I think they must use the same tailor because their outfits looked exactly the same. Now I'm paranoid, I think he's going to want revenge for the death of his brother. I hope I can sleep okay tonight. I'm bringing out the weapons of mouse destruction and picking up even more tomorrow. Forget watching CNN, the war of the moment is happening in my apartment.

I probably should have figured there'd be more than one, because people have told me that there's NEVER just one. I was hopefull though. More reports to follow.

I came home from Target today to find that the mouse was the victim of its own curiosity (or maybe clumsiness). There was a glass mixing bowl with about 1.5 inches of salty water in it sitting on my counter from making rice balls last night. In the water was floating the mouse, I'm assuming dead. So I figure he was either looking to see what was in the bowl, or fell while trying to get to something else. In either case, I am now (hopefully) mouseless. I do a dance of mouseless joy.

For some reason I feel slightly better that it wasn't a trap that I specificly put out for it that caused its demise.

Oooo. I just found the disc for my copy of Sam & Max Hit the Road. Bah. It's for the PC and I remember having a hell of a time getting it working (and I don't even wanna think about getting it running under VirtPC). And there IS a mac version of the game. Anyone have the CD-ROM of it and willing to make an image for me? I wish places let you trade in one OS version for another. Though, if I were to get this I'd also have a new copy of Day of the Tentacle that could run on the mac. Anyone ever play the Indiana Jones game in this pack? Any good?

Earlier tonight I started working on ripping more CDs. I'd had a stack by the G4 for ages. Here's where I'm at now.

• Depeche Mode - Enjoy the Silence (cd single)
• Depeche Mode - Personal Jesus (cd single)
• Depeche Mode - Violator
• Depeche Mode - Black Celebration
• Depeche Mode - Music for the Masses
• Depeche Mode - Some Great Reward
• Depeche Mode - A Broken Frame
• Depeche Mode - Construction Time Again
• Depeche Mode - Speak & Spell
• Adam Ant - Antics in the Forbidden Zone

The last one snuck in there becuase I'd been listening to it on my laptop earlier. So many good tracks.

Over on GameGirl Advance there's a post about Game Blurring.

Game Blurring
Today, Jane was playing on a console. In the game, evening was falling, I saw a spotlight sweep the ground near her feet. "Look out!" I thought, "You'd better dodge that beam!" But then I blinked - the light came from a lighthouse; Jane was playing Animal Crossing and I was thinking of Splinter Cell. [game girl advance]

I do this all the time. In fact I was doing this with Animal Crossing the other day. I had to wash some chick's car and she insulted my clothes. I wanted to just hop in that car and start driving around time like in GTA:VC. It would be great. All the animals in that town are completely insane. They take each other's stuff, give things they are borrowing to other animals, insult you in snide ways. They need to be taught a lesson! Where's my chainsaw?

So I found an old floppy and gave it a try. I think it came out okay. I really didn't think it would work all that well but it did. It still looks pretty cheesy though. And as elthar said, it's the ugly Enterprise-D.

Oh well, the things you'll do when you can't sleep. Time to go and start counting paperclips.

Got some old 3.5 inch floppies laying around? Well here's something you can do with them: make a little mini starship enterprise. I wonder if I have any still sitting around to give it a try. If it works I'll post a picture.

Singapore Yahoo News is reporting that 28 baby girls found in suitcases on Chinese bus.

Police in southwestern China discovered 28 baby girls hidden in suitcases on a long-distance bus and apparently destined to be sold, police and a state-run newspaper said.

One of the babies had died by the time police, acting on a tip-off, found them Tuesday night on the bus at a highway toll gate in Bingyang, Guangxi province, the Beijing Morning News said.

Police at the Bingyang police station confirmed the case and told AFP more than 20 suspects had been arrested.

"The babies are fine. More than 20 people have been arrested," one police officer said, refusing to comment further.

How can people do this. It just leaves me feeling a ill to think about it. Bleh. (link provided by Jeff)

I was looking through my news aggregator this morning and saw mention of Cliff Johnson and his wonderful game Fool's Errand. I remember this game showing up sometime while I was at Carnegie Mellon and we were all hooked on it. Everyone was racing to see who could finish it first. It was pretty insane. For those of you who haven't heard of it, Fool's Errand was a puzzle game. There were over 90 puzzles that had to be solved. Some were simple, some drove you crazy till you figured them out. He's got the original game up for download too (runs on pc and mac (even current macs!)). And the even better news is that he's got a new game coming out on Halloween called A Fool and his Money. I can't wait.

Dave posts about Cambridge being cool and I started to think about all the things I love about Cambridge in the spring. I heard people out walking late last night again. I live about 4 blocks from Harvard and this is such a nice little neighborhood. People walk their dogs late at night, go for walks, it's like things don't calm down till 11 or 12. When it is really nice I'll sit out on my doorstep and just watch the people walking, saying hi now and then. At times this can really be a nice friendly place.

I can't wait till it gets just a tiny bit warmer at night.

e e cummings: "The most wasted of all days is one without laughter." [Quotes of the Day]

One of my favorite, if not my favorite, game companies, Atlas Games, appears to have a blog. Very cool. Too bad there isn't an RSS feed. Of course now this means I may have to try and hunt down some of my old gaming contacts.

Anyone know who these blogsafe.com guys are? They keep grabbing the index.rdf file from my site. Like way too often, every couple of minutes there are a few requests for it. I tried to see if they have a web site up, but I just get an error that says I don't have access to http://blogsafe.com/. It almost feels like a good excuse to finally kill off that feed. Since there really isn't any reason to keep it around.

Some researchers decide to see how well a real dog interacts with a Aibo. Too funny.

Dave points to a nice chart comparing versions of RSS. Pretty nice. It does make me wonder what's up with the whole RDF (RSS 1.0?) side of things. Shouldn't people be working on phasing it out? For example, Movable Type still has that as the default feed type. I discontinued mine and just have the RSS 2.0 version now (or at least I think I did).

With everything going on in the world, I'd forgotten that it's the Equinox today. Thanks to Antipixel for providing the reminder. Happy Spring everyone! It's about time.

Isaac Asimov: "It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety." [Quotes of the Day]

I just want to know how the heck they thought this one up. From Boing Boing, Xeni brings us this tidbit:

wacky "Mighty Midols desktop app" combats "forces of Monsteruation"
Alloy.com is running a bizarre online promotion for anti-PMS meds:

What is THE MIGHTY MIDOLS MENSTRUAL 'MINDER (M4)? The M4 is a fun and easy desktop application that allows you to interact with the Mighty Midols! A password protected interface lets you input your cycle information to be sure to never be caught off guard by Monsteruation again. Marissa, Mimi and Maya will battle the forces of Monsteruation and keep your computer desktop symptom free.

Link, Discuss, (Thanks, Chris!)
[Boing Boing Blog]

Rita Mae Brown: "The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you." [Quotes of the Day]

I set up a kind of tradewars-like web based game at http://www.ezoons.com/blacknova/. Feel free to come by and give it a try. I'll keep it running as long as it doesn't impact on the machine's ability to do other things.

It's Girl Scount Cookie season. When you work in an office you get a direct link to the cookies. There's always someone whose kid is in Girl Scouts. I'm starting to get that urge for a Tagalong, mmm, or maybe one of those shortbread cookies. Or my other new favorite, the shortbread ones with animals on them that have one side dipped in chocolate. MMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

Pablo Picasso: "Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." [Quotes of the Day]

Tonight we've got one of my good friends and favorite local DJs MDR. I've known Mike for ages and remember when he first started spinning. We've talked for endless hours about music and spinning. He's the ultimate perfectionist when it comes to his music, so this should be quite a great night. Here's the blurb.

Changmian and Dubcoast present

*~The Analog Lounge~*
The relaxed side of things. Join us every Wednesday for a mix of styles, with lots of mellow mixed in. Last week was dubcoast week, this week is Changmian week. Join us tonight for

MDR - Changmian

with resident dj's
music styles in the lounge at Vertigo. Gregory Blake (Changmian) Boston
Special Pete (dubcoast music) CA
Peter Ellis (ttb) Boston
Pete Yagmin (Changmian) Boston

Wednesdays
@ Vertigo (upstairs)
126 State St. Boston, MA
617-723-7277
10pm - 2am
21+ with ID
$5 cover (gets you into both the Lounge and Anitya)
No dress code
www.changmian.com
www.dubcoast.com
www.vertigoboston.com
www.mapquest.com (directions)

Upcoming Guests:
03/26 - Residents Night

To view our calendar online (with support for you iCal and Mozilla calendar folk):
http://ical.mac.com/gblake99/The32Analog32Lounge
This week downstairs at Anitya:

Toon Network didn't totally butcher Kenshin, and the dub isn't too too bad. Definitely something to check out. It's on Toon Network at 6:30, and just started this week. This is one that I think Toon Network needs to show recaps of on the weekends.

Doc Searls mentions trackback and that it still confuses him. I was in the same boat until I started playing around with it. There has to be a better way to describe it. The easiest I think of is calling it a kind of automated comment that gets posted to a blog post you reference. I think it's a great idea, and agree that someone will find some way to abuse it eventually (though I hope no time soon).

What I wonder is if anyone has started looking at trackback data to see how stories are linked and how quickly some things spread across the net.

Phil Ringnalda writes about Dave upgrading the weblogs.com machine and finding someone crawling it.

I'm trying really hard not to think about how Dave was seeing a heavy load during the changeover because someone was crawling all over the Radio discussion group. Whether he meant radio.userland.com/discuss/ or radiocomments.userland.com/discuss/, in either case if I were crawling it, it would be because of all those juicy email addresses, sitting out at the end of /profiles/$ URLs all over the place. I've always thought those were fat enough targets to be well worth writing a special purpose crawler. (Note for the irony impaired: I'm not actually a spammer, or a writer of email harvesters.)

I hate to break it to you, but they've been crawled a bunch (and I know I've griped about it a few times here). They grabbed one of my addresses and I've gotten span from it. I personally think Userland needs to start encoding email addresses anywhere it prints them out on a web page (or find a way not to print them out at all, I personally don't trust the endcoding thing).

Blaise Pascal: "Man is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from which he emerges and the infinity in which he is engulfed." [Quotes of the Day]

A bit over a year ago I posted about a book titled Northern Gothic, by Nick Mamatas (I still highly recommend it). He recently started up a blog to follow his experiences getting his next book, Move Under Ground, published. I'm hoping someone picks it up soon, because it sounds pretty damn cool.

Oh yeah, he's even got his own fan site, check it out to find out where else you can read his work.

Thanks to Wil Wheaton I'm now a worshipper of TROGDOR!!

Damn you Mr Wheaton.

Well, it looks like the weather finally started to get a clue. Spring starts in less than a week and we're finally seeing weather more fitting of the season. It's 49 out and it's only 9:30ish. I just got some coffee and sat out on the doorstep for a few minutes. I think I'll be back out there later on my laptop if the weather stays nice.

This took a while for me to write, because I seemed to have so much I wanted to say, but kept remembering other things as I wrote it. I hope it doesn't ramble too much.

Jason from Goldblogger responded to Chris Pirillo's post about his site (it's in the comments) (Hey Chris, have individual archive pages, it makes it easier to link :)). I wanted to say a little bit more about the subject. First off, I have no problem with people making some cash from their web site. I know I am an Amazon affiliate (though only one person buys things through it much). Why did I do it? Why not? At first I was just giving links to Amazon for books I was reading. But I figured since I had the links there already why not just make them affiliate links. Once I move my hosting off to a site where I have to pay I may ramp up the donation begging a little. But that's because I'm unemployed and hosting isn't free. As I mentioned in the comments on Chris' blog, my problem was more with the tone of the site. Jason ends up sounding like one of those late night salespeople on an infomercial, and that is what turned me off initially.

Some other random thoughts. While he is correct in saying that there are bloggers out there making money, they tend to be the exception. I tend to break blogs into a number of categories in my head. There's the personal blog. Where a lot of people have a little donation box up, but don't pull in much. The goal is usually to help cover hosting charges. To me, this is the big difference, people are getting into blogging because they like the idea of it. They aren't getting into it to make some cash. In a lot of ways it is similar the open source movement. One thing that always appealed to me about it is that people are writing software because they want to (or because they don't like how the current tools work). Recognition matters more than money. And while that recognition may lead to money, it's not the driving force. I think what this site fails to recognize is the mindset of a lot of the people who helped create the net. It reduces it to purely a way to make money.

The other kind of blog popping up lately is the developer blog. These tend to be connected to a product or company. What makes these useful is that they can provide information. In the software industry people are frustrated with waiting for when the next bug fix is going to come out. Most of the time they don't even know if the company is even addressing it. Look at what Dave Hyatt is doing with Safari. I love being able to read here and there about stuff that is being fixed with it. I hope that once the product comes out of beta we'll still hear from him. But even in this case, the value of the blog is in customer satisfaction. Which hopefully will translate to real dollars for the company.

Oh well, that's enough rambling for now. It's an interesting topic, even if I don't agree with goldblogger.

Samuel Goldwyn: "You've got to take the bitter with the sour." [Quotes of the Day]

A Few TiVo mentions showing up in NNW today. Simon Fell has a bunch of links to TiVo hacking resources. I really need to look into getting a network card for the TiVo. I'd love to ditch the need for the phone line.

Also Derek talks about taking his TiVo for granted. I'm the same way. Every time I go down to my parents I find myself wanting it. I keep thinking that if I ever upgrade I'll give them my old one. I think once they got used to it they'd really enjoy it.

Mark Twain: "Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example." [Quotes of the Day]

I just had a chance to look at this blog using IE6 and there's some definitely weird stuff going on. I'd just heard from a few people reports of things looking weird this week (how many weeks after my redesign?). I'm not sure why either. It looks good on every other browser I've tested (even IE on the Mac).

This is one thing that annoys me about IE. There seem to be lots of little CSS issues, yet they don't seem to be making any kind of regular releases to fix things like this. I hope that Apple learns from this. Once Safari is out of beta, I hope they are continuously looking for places where it doesn't render right and fixing them.

So, any IE 6.0/CSS experts want to peek at my CSS and let me know what's wrong?

Chris mentioned someplace called 'Goldblogger today. Looking over the site scared me. It just screams "MAKE MONEY FAST!". Did you know that by blogging with Goldblogger you can:

• Learn which blogging software to use, so that you are not hamstrung as your business expands.
• Learn how to weave revenue streams into blog, so that you have a passive income flowing into your pocket, each and every month.
• Learn how to skyrocket your readership, and increase your prestige and popularity using a few simple techniques.
• Learn about hypnotic marketing and why it is revolutionizing GoldBlogging's money making potential.
• Learn the secrets of writing money-making ads.
• Learn how "trackback" can be used to manipulate your Google ranking.
• Learn which software, shareware, and freeware will help you make money by automating many of the complex or monotonous tasks.

Ew. Ew. Ew. Just what is hypnotic marketing anyways? (Your eyes are getting heavy... you will MAKE MONEY FAST! just send me $10). What is up with this stuff lately. I've seen a number of somewhat cheesy sounding blog related businesses starting up lately. Does this mean blogging has really hit the mainstream? Hmm, I am unemployed right now though, maybe I should start up a 'blogging business'. I actually think someone could probably have a nice small business helping people getting set up with a new blog (another side to the help newbie computer owners learn how to use their computer biz I've thought about doing). But I don't think it would ever be much more than something to do on the side.

Dan Quisenberry: "The future is much like the present, only longer." [Quotes of the Day]

I finally got a chance to check out Raging Platypus. It seems to be quite the rage these days. I liked it. It's now been added to my blogroll to the left.

When I broke open my fortune cookie today it had three fortunes in it. Here's what I got.

• There are more important forms of compensation than money.
• Sharpen your mind, not your temper. You have made an impression.
• A stranger is relying on you to perform your duty.

Wil Wheaton posts about an old game that I used to love. I wonder if my copy of Dark Tower is still around at my parents place. He also posted a link to a site where you can play it online! The only thing missing of course is networked play. Thankfully the well-of-souls.com link has the rules for those of us who are a bit rusty.

Anatole France: "The average man, who does not know what to do with his life, wants another one which will last forever." [Quotes of the Day]

The other day I noticed some people searching for some very wacky things, but I never really kept track of it. Last night I decided to do something about it. If you go to my siteinfo page I have a listing of the top searches for the month, as well as breaking it down to individual search terms. I will probably end up just listing the top 20 for each. I hope to get around to posting the code for it in the next day or so, once I've gotten it cleaned up.

I was in the store yesterday picking up some milk and saw these. I was having a bit of a sweets craving so walked down the cookie asile. Chips Ahoy used to be my favorite store bought cookie when I was growing up. I'd take a sleeve of them and a half gallon of milk and sit down on the couch after school and watch TV while working myself into a sugar frenzy.

When I saw the box for 'Ooey Gooey Warm 'n Chewy Chips Ahoy!' I knew I had to give them a try. These aren't your normal chewy cookies like soft ones you get. These are designed to be heated up in the microwave until they 'smell like cookies baking'. Each box has 6 packages with two cookies in each package. You put two cookies on a plate and microwave them for 15 seconds (adding another 10 seconds if need be). The cookies do come out nice and warm, though I don't know that I'd call them Gooey. As far as taste, enh. They weren't bad, but they weren't all that good either. The other problem is that when the cookies cool off they get very hard and I think they don't taste good anymore. If you aren't able to make a batch of cookies on your own, you would be better off buying a package of cookie dough and baking a small batch. It might take a bit longer, but the cookies will taste much better.

This was in my News Aggregator earlier today. Starting a Blog (with Movable Type) covers some of the basics of starting a blog. It's pretty good, I think it does an okay job of showing what is needed. Though we really do need to have MT supporting RSS 2.0 out of the box with some options for those of us who want full posts to appear in it.

This morning I finally got around to installing the jabber server. I'd thought about just registering with jabber.com or jabber.org, but I liked the idea of having a server for my friends and I. There are still some things I need to work out (like getting ssl support enabled), but so far it looks like it works.

Why am I doing this? Because the Jabber folks seem to be doing some interesting stuff. Because it is free. And because if I can't get on IM it will be because it is my fault, not the fault of some big company screwing up.

So my jabber ID is snooze@jabber.ezoons.com. You can find clients for every OS over on jabber.org. I use one called Psi on OS X. I think Trillian over on Windows may support jabber now too. If you want an account on my machine, ask nicely and I might help you. Otherwise you can just get one at jabber.org.

I just got off the phone with Comcast and I'm feeling a mass of hate in their direction already. Since I've lived in this apartment my cable/cable modem service has gone from Mediaone to AT&T to Comcast (for some reason I keep thinking there should be something else in there but I can't think of who it would be). Today I was rebooting my gateway a few times and suddenly it wasn't able to talk to the DHCP server. In fact, when I looked at the cable modem it appeared to be offline. I made a quick call to Comcast to find out if they were doing any work in the area. What occured next made me want to reach through the phone and strangle the guy who answered the phone.

The first thing the guy says to me after getting my account information is that I have an old cable modem that isn't supported anymore. He then goes right into scheduling me getting a new modem. When I finally get a chance to ask a question I'm told that he can't do anything to help me with the current cable modem I have. I schedule an appointment for tomorrow to get the new modem and then ask him if my service just stopped because I have an old one modem and need a new one. In other words "Did you folks cut my service because I had an old cable modem?" After insisting on an answer he tells me that yes, this is the case and they are sorry they didn't inform me beforehand. Right about now I happen to look down at my screen and notice my line has come back up and I'm online. So on top of it all the guy lied to me. At that point I just let the call end becuase I had to head out to meet someone for lunch.

Comcast will be getting a letter from me about their crappy service though. At least make sure the front line phone droids can give real answers instead of making shit up. Bastards.

Oh, and if you've got one of those big 'ol lancity cable modems I suggest calling them and just getting it replaced because they won't even consider helping you if you have one.

Adam asks:

loose lips
If loose lips sink ships, then what do these do? [Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog]

Worksafe, but be careful with the volume or your co-workers may get jealous.

Ogden Nash: "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of." [Quotes of the Day]

I just found the web site for Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door (called just Cowboy Bebop: The Movie). It seems that it will be opening in limited release across the US on April 4th. And, it's showing right down the street from me in Harvard Square. I've downloaded the movie, but I so want to see it on the big screen. Oh, the web site for the movie? It can be found right here (requires flash). Also, while that page has the trailer, it's embedded in the page (and only in real and windows media. Yo, Columbia Tristar, get with the program, Quicktime's the best thing for trailers). You can find a downloadable version of the trailer here. Just watching it reminded me of how slick this movie was.

Who wants to go?

Dave Winer is making the cross country trek as he makes his move to Cambridge. Just over five years ago I was making the move myself. I kind of wish I'd been blogging then so that I had some kind of record of it. One thing I can sympathize with is the length of the drive. He's taking it much slower than I am though. I made it from San Diego to Pittsburgh in just under three days. I hated it. It drove me crazy. I drove the whole way alone and all I could care about each day was making it to the next place I would stop and sleep. I hope to never do it again.

Thanks to my friend Jeff (Yes, I'll get you onto my blogroll eventually), I found this cool app that publishes your iTunes playlists in HTML or text. So I thought I'd share what is currently in my iPod (Hmm, I wonder how it will handle the stuff in Japanese).

Update: I guess if you have support for Japanese in your browser it all comes out fine! cool!

You know, one of those ones where the mouse tormets the cat. And I'm the cat. After over two months of no evidence of mouse. I just saw him staring at me from the entrance to the kitchen with that look of "HA. Thought you'd gotten rid of me!" Then it gave me the finger and ran away. Bastard. This means war.

I could major in this. I wonder if they supply air tanks or if you learn to hold your breath for a long time as part of the major.

Niels Bohr: "Your theory is crazy, but it's not crazy enough to be true." [Quotes of the Day]

This week another installment of The Analog Lounge. This time hilighting the Dubcoast connection. We've been going for a few months now and really should have gotten to it before this. Look for more Dubcoast folks to show up in the future (hopefully). Also I believe Mr Special Pete will be closing out the night for us. And I'm all better now, so I'll get to treat myself to a Pearl Vodka Martini, YUM.

Changmian and Dubcoast present

*~The Analog Lounge~*
The relaxed side of things. Join us every Wednesday for a mix of styles, with lots of mellow mixed in. This week is Dubcoast week, with special guest:

DJ Dres - proton radio/dubcoast/DEKLAB - MA

along with resident dj's
music styles in the lounge at Vertigo. Gregory Blake (Changmian) Boston
Special Pete (dubcoast music) CA
Peter Ellis (ttb) Boston
Pete Yagmin (Changmian) Boston

Wednesdays
@ Vertigo (upstairs)
126 State St. Boston, MA
617-723-7277
10pm - 2am
21+ with ID
$5 cover (gets you into both the Lounge and Anitya)
No dress code
www.changmian.com
www.dubcoast.com
www.vertigoboston.com
www.mapquest.com (directions)

Upcoming Guests:
03/19 - MDR - Changmian - MA
03/26 - Residents Night

To view our calendar online (with support for you iCal and Mozilla calendar folk):
http://ical.mac.com/gblake99/The32Analog32Lounge
This week downstairs at Anitya: DJ Bim & Vitalik

Sick of telemarketers? I know I am. I don't even answer my home phone anymore because every time I do I hear a recording start (those are the worst ones too IMHO). There's relief in sight though.

WASHINGTON, March 11 — President Bush on Tuesday signed legislation creating a national “do-not-call” list intended to help consumers block unwanted telemarketing calls.[MSNBC]

Now we need a 'do-not-spam' list.

While browsing through some of my regular reads today I stumbled upon a link from Derek's Rantings and Musings to Aaron's Putty World. I had to almost staple myself down to the couch to not give into the urge to get lots of putty. This stuff looks like it is a close cousin to Silly Putty, but in much cooler colors. I think when I get a job I'm going to have a big block of putty on my desk for people to play with.

Update: I ordered and it has shipped already!

Tom Stoppard: "Eternity's a terrible thought. I mean, where's it all going to end?" [Quotes of the Day]

As mentioned over at Scobleizer, McD's is going to be offering WiFi service.

NEW YORK, March 10 — Would you like super-sized Internet access with that burger and fries? In a further sign of the spread of wireless Internet technology, McDonald’s restaurants in three U.S. cities will offer one hour of free high-speed access to anyone who buys a combination meal. [MSNBC]

An hour of time with a meal actually sounds like a pretty good deal to me. Two cheeseburger combo meal for me.

Once again the folks at Perversion Tracker bring us a quality review. This time they review Guinea Pig 1.0. Thanks to them I now know way more than I'd ever want know about Guinea Pigs. Really, I can't think of anything else I'd care to know about.

I just had to share the love with all of you.

(I take no responsibility for loss of lunch, dinner, breakfast, or afternoon crumpet after reading the above).

A while back Apple did a preview release of IP over Firewire. I didn't really pay much attention to it since it isn't often that I'm doing stuff with two macs. The other day I was grabbing the latest dev tools and decided to download it just so that I would have it handy.

Today I zipped down to my parents place and decided to give it a try, since there was some software I'd downloaded that I wanted to make available to them. Once installed it, I plugged the firewire cable into each computer and was able to see the other under file sharing. This will make it much easier to send files back and forth to them when I'm down visiting. And it means one less cable to carry around with me. I have heard reports of at least one person having a kernal panic when they tried this, but I haven't seen any sign of anything like that yet (*knock on wood*). Hopefully Apple will roll this into a real release sometime soon.

I think I'm going to be heading down to CT today. My parents have been wanting me to come down and hang for a day or two, but I find it so hard to motivate to drive down there. It just seems to wipe me out. I get down there and then sleep. There's also the whole slow net connection thing. I think if they had faster net I'd be down there all the time. I'd even buy an airport card for their mac so I could be wireless.

So we'll see if I can actually pry myself off my ass at a reasonable enough hour to head down there.

No, don't worry, not that kind of slash. Don Park has first posts about slashdot going downhill in the past year, I personally think it's been much longer than that. I stopped reading much more than the headlines quite a while ago. He also has an interesting post about bloggers ruining Google's pagerank algorithm. In some cases it might make sense for blogs to be the higher rated sites for some things, but I can certainly see it working the other way.

This year's Bloggies have been announced. Once again, I think they need to be posting their definitions for some of the categories. For instance, as much as I love Boing Boing, I wouldn't call it a 'computers or technology weblog' (though it does include posts on that subject). As usual, I find myself much more entertained by The Anti-Bloggies.

Marston Bates: "Research is the process of going up alleys to see if they are blind." [Quotes of the Day]

I haven't read Dr. Fun in ages. But today I got pointed at a great one about the dreams of a squid.

Aleister Crowley: "To read a newspaper is to refrain from reading something worthwhile. The first discipline of education must therefore be to refuse resolutely to feed the mind with canned chatter." [Quotes of the Day]

I put on VH1 Classic to find 'We are the 80s' on. A hour of videos from the 80s, now I can't go to sleep till 3am. Absolute Beginners by The Jam just played, followed by Charlotte Anne by Julian Cope. I love how cheesy some of the videos back then were. At the same time a lot of the videos seem a lot more creative than stuff I see now (if you can actually see Videos on MTV that is).

The interrobang is my new favorite punctuation mark.

The INTERROBANG was created to fill a gap in our punctuation system where writers often used typographically cumbersome and unattractive combinations of the question mark and exclamation mark to punctuate rhetorical statements where neither the question nor an exclamation alone exactly served the writer. (HOW ABOUT THAT?!)

[ via Chris Pirillo ]

A few years ago there was a cool site called SixDegrees.com. The idea was that you and all your friends would go there and indicate who their friends were. Then, you could see how you were linked to people. It was a neat idea that ended up getting too big and dying. I hadn't really seen much in the way of sites like that since until recently. The first one I ran into is called Friendster. It's a lot like Six Degrees. It focuses on social connections, though almost feels a little like a dating site at the same time.

The other one is called Ryze. Ryze is seems to have more of a focus on business networking. From the FAQ:

Q: So what is Ryze anyways?
A: This is a site devoted to helping your extend your business network. You can find interesting people and connect with them, through common interests, shared friends and so on. The site includes things like an events calendar, a message board, private messaging facilities, home pages / profiles and a contact manager. Please try it out and let us know about anything that's unclear or frustrating, and also about suggestions for future enhancements. Thanks.

I think heard about this site when it went online, but it had slipped off my radar until this morning. Chris Pirillo posted about signing up with Ryze, so I had to go and take a look. It looks like the site has really taken off since I first saw it. I took some time to sign up and already found one person I know (btw, if you sign up you can do so here (it will link you to me when you sign up I believe)).

I actually think Ryze is a really cool idea. I'm going to see how I like it and maybe write some more on it after using it for a while.

Nothing like a bit of geek humor to start the day off. Here's a slight twist on The Matrix called The Matrix | Second Edition [ via YABlog ]. Almost as good as Tales of the L33T.

I know why you're here, Neo.
I know why you try and pick up IRC chicks. Why you hardly sleep, why you live alone, and why night after night you sit at your computer listening to mp3s.

George Carlin: "Some national parks have long waiting lists for camping reservations. When you have to wait a year to sleep next to a tree, something is wrong." [Quotes of the Day]

In the "stating the obvious" category today:

proving what's already known...
UPI: Lack of sleep affects kids' alertness.  "An extra hour of sleep could mean the difference between an alert child and a more sluggish one, research reveals."  [via MyFreePress.com] [viajenett.radio]

Wired writes about the Sony Ericsson Clicker that I posted about the other week. I need to think of what I want to turn on when I walk into my apartment.

I don't often give myself compliments or brag, but I'm going to for just one second this morning. I make a damn good omelette. I'm having a cheese and smoked salmon omelette and it is really good. I think the only thing that might make it better are some mushrooms.

The coffee's damn good too

Dave Hyatt has a really cool article on tabbed browsing and UI and ways to impliment it. It's interesting to see this level of thought going into it. I can't wait to try out a release of Safari with tabs to see how they do it.

Beryl Pfizer: "I write down everything I want to remember. That way, instead of spending a lot of time trying to remember what it is I wrote down, I spend the time looking for the paper I wrote it down on." [Quotes of the Day]

All we need to do is pay attention to what the Internet really is. It's not hard. The Net isn't rocket science. It isn't even 6th grade science fair, when you get right down to it. We can end the tragedy of Repetitive Mistake Syndrome in our lifetimes — and save a few trillion dollars’ worth of dumb decisions — if we can just remember one simple fact: the Net is a world of ends. You're at one end, and everybody and everything else are at the other ends.[World of Ends]

It's an interesting read. I think Dr. Weinberger is someone who really gets the internet, more than most people out there. I highly recommend his book Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web. While I don't know that I agree with everything he says, I think he's on target with most of it. This article is no exception. The question I have is, how come the big companies don't get it?

Stacy gets to have a bit of that special talk with her son after he asks "Mom, what are testicles?" while in the parking lot of Walgreens. I have to say this is one of the smoothest things I've read. I think if I ever had a kid I'd never handle it this well. Though hopefully I'd use this as a bit of a guideline.

(I'm planning on starting a new section of this blog where I can ramble on and on about geeky things without boring the rest of you).

One thing I've always wished I could do easily with apache is rotate logs on a daily basis. It comes with a program called rotatelogs, but that just creates a new log file every 24 hours. it doesn't seem to do it based on the actual date. It also doesn't give you much choice for naming the file.

Tonight I started looking around for a script that would let me rotate the log files more easily and discovered cronolog. It lets you specify a template for how to add entries to a log file. You can easily specify to do new log files by day or month or year. It also comes with a program to split up your old logfiles too if you wish.

The docter perscribed Biaxin for me for my cough, just in case. I'd taken Biaxin once before and has forgotten about one side effect: Metalic Taste. I am so happy I just took my last pill tonight. I've had this kind of metalic taste in my mouth for the last week and the last two days it has been driving me crazy.

There's nothing quite like waking up and wondering if you've sleep-walked and ate handfull of pennies.

A while back there was a kinda cool game for the PS2 called Dark Cloud. You basicly were running around dungeons and killing things and rebuilding cities. It was pretty fun, though it wasn't perfect. Just a week or two ago Dark Cloud 2 came out. Currently this game owns my soul. It's like an rpg with a whole bunch of other things. You learn to invent new things to use, you go fishing, you get to transform into various monsters, you can breed your fish, you rebuild villages. There's just so much there. If you are a PS2 owner and liked the first game at all, or are looking for something interesting to try out I highly recommend it.

From the review from over at GamesDomain.com.

Dark Cloud 2 is also responsible for one of those all-too-rare gaming moments you just never forget. You know the ones. Things like your last rookie taking out all the aliens in X-Com, the thing jumping through the window in Alone in the Dark, the opening sequence of Half-Life, when you first stayed up all night because Civilization was so good, stuff like that.

It's 5pm, and it's not dark out (even if it is still snowing). Yet another sign that spring is just about to go SPRONG.

I am 77% Evil Genius

I am pure evil. I lie awake at night devising schemes of world domination, and I will not rest until all living souls bend to my will.

Take the Evil Genius Test at fuali.com

Did you ever wonder "Who owns snow?". [ via Ernie the Attorney ]

I echo everyone else in saying 'stop with the snow already'. I had a bunch of errands I wanted to run this afternoon, and it looks pretty messy out there so I'm no goin anywhere. Time for an afternoon of DVDs or something.

Anyone got any cool plans for the weekend?

Maurice Sendak: "There must be more to life than having everything." [Quotes of the Day]

My friend selma just IM'd me a link and so of course I blindly clicked and read. A few moments later I had to stop for a moment, I was laughing and coughing so hard. Finally, proof that blimps are evil.

When 50 million years worth of evolutionary survival instinct hits you all at once flat in the gut at 200 mph it is not a pleasant sensation.

"If sex is a full-course meal, then masturbation is like a snack," Wako University sexologist Kim Myung Gan tells Shukan Jitsuwa. "Of course, some couples may find a full course a bit too deep or a bit too painful at times and instead find it easier to go out for a snack. It's a better idea to decide on whether to have sex or masturbate depending on how you feel at the time. That way, couples can avoid problems that could otherwise ruin their relationship." [MDN:WaiWai]

I quoted this to a friend online and the following brief exchange ensued:

You say "Is there something wrong with their simile there?"
You say "I haven't often found a full course dinner to be too deep or painful"
friend giggles
friend says "depends on where you put it..."

Another Boing Boing link (sometimes I feel like I should just point at them and say 'just go here, there's cool stuff'). Here are some of Jack Kirby's designs for a science fiction theme park that was never built (along with some for a film project). I'd have gone to a theme park that looks like that.

For me, many of the best parts of the rave scene were the early ones. I wasn't really there at the beginning, though I'd been trying to actually find it for a while at the point I did. It wasn't quite as easy back then. Things were still fairly underground, with a few massives poking their nose out now and then. While following a link from BoingBoing, I discovered this wonderful bit of writing that helped remind me how things felt back then.

Would it make sense to be able to do trackbacks from comments? I just had a case where I was responding to a comment, but also referencing another post and was thinking it might be kind of neat to be able to do that.

Here's a nice one to think about first thing in the morning.

Man arrested for 'peace' T-shirt
NEW YORK (Reuters) -- A lawyer was arrested late Monday and charged with trespassing at a public mall in the state of New York after refusing to take off a T-shirt advocating peace that he had just purchased at the mall.

I'm not a lawyer but I thought that malls counted as public spaces. And is text on a tshirt covered by the first amendment? Let's hear it for insanity.

I saw this on some other blog via my new aggregator, and ment to post on it but it slipped my mind. So thankfully now I get a second chance. Antipixel posts about an book published last year that suggests there is a secret city hidden underneith Japan. It sounds like there's a conspiracy about the whole thing also.

Sitting on the Ginza subway from Suehirocho to Kanda, he says, you can see many mysterious tunnels leading off from the main track. “No such routes are shown on maps.” Traveling from Kasumigaseki to Kokkai-gijidomae, there is a line off to the left that is not shown on any map. Nor is it indicated in subway construction records.

At Tameike-sanno on the Ginza Line, the first basement level is closed off, for official use only. “Go to the toilet on B2 and there is a door to B1, but locked.”

It really does sound like something out of a conspiracy thriller. Hmm, maybe there's some kind of secret city under Boston. That's why the Big Dig has taken so long.

Well, Wednesday is right around the corner, which means another installment of The Analog Lounge. After two weeks of being sick I'm more than ready to sneak out for a bit. I probably won't make it all night, but I do hope to be opening. This week we've got Qi as our guest. I remember when I first met him, he was doing a weekly at this bar called The Times (I think that's what it was called). It was this cool little pub and the night went on for a while, but as with most good things came to an end too early.

Also, I know a certain someone is spinning over at the Phoenix Landing. This is one part of having a wed night gig that sucks. I haven't seen Doc spin in ages and would kill to see him. But having been away from the night for two weeks I really need to be there. For those folks who are in the mood for something a little more quiet I definitely recommend coming on down. If you ask nicely maybe I'll treat you to a martini.

Changmian and Dubcoast present

*~The Analog Lounge~*
The relaxed side of things. Join us every Wednesday for a mix of styles, with lots of mellow mixed in. This week we welcome someone who hasn't been seen out much lately:

Qi (Mad Lifted - Rockport, MA)
One of the most upbeat and busy people you'll ever run into, Will (aka Qi) is an outstanding psy-trance DJ and producer. He's blown up dance-floors all over the East Coast and is currently spending time in the studio working on new live material. Tonight, be prepared for a rare downtempo/ambient set from one of Boston's first psy-trance DJ's.

with resident dj's
music styles in the lounge at Vertigo. Gregory Blake (Changmian) Boston
Special Pete (dubcoast music) CA
Peter Ellis (ttb) Boston
Pete Yagmin (Changmian) Boston

Wednesdays
@ Vertigo (upstairs)
126 State St. Boston, MA
617-723-7277
10pm - 2am
21+ with ID
$5 cover (gets you into both the Lounge and Anitya)
No dress code
www.changmian.com
www.dubcoast.com
www.vertigoboston.com
www.mapquest.com (directions)

Upcoming Guests:
03/12 - DJ Dres - proton radio/dubcoast/DEKLAB - MA
03/19 - MDR - Changmian - MA
03/26 - Residents Night

To view our calendar online (with support for you iCal and Mozilla calendar folk):
http://ical.mac.com/gblake99/The32Analog32Lounge
This week downstairs at Anitya: Dave Henshaw (Changmian).

As I've posted here before, I tend to pop my own popcorn on the stove. None of the microwave stuff for me. So, while reading up on things to make in my new cast iron dutch oven I came across some recipes for making popcorn in it. The all seem to consist of a stick of margarine, and then enough popcorn to cover the bottom of the pot. My first try was a disaster. One thing that seemed to take forever was for the margarine to heat up. I'm not sure if I should have it hotter to start with or what. I can just imagine if the margarine was burnt it not tasting that great. So has anyone else made popcorn in a dutch oven before? How hot should it be? Any other recommendations? I'm sure a level of it is practice. I know that in the usual pot I use to make popcorn I have it down to a science, it comes out perfect almost every time.

I remember back in college there was a program for the Mac that was floating around called Talking Moose. If you left your computer idle for a while he'd pop up and say something random. It was pretty silly and would drive people insane after a bit. I know of someone who used to use it to help keep them awake during allnighters. Mostly though, Talking Moose was one of the most useless programs out there, but it was funny to play with now and then. Alas, I thought the moose long gone.

Then, this afternoon I suddenly decided to type 'Talking Moose' into google (after reading about Jarod over on Perversion Tracker. Not only did I discover that the Talking Moose still exists, but there is a version of OS X. My laptop will never be the same.

From over on jennet.radio something childish and fun (requires flash). I sometimes think I need more childish and fun in my life.

Over the past week or so my sleep schedule has gotten completely out of wack. I normally wake up around 7ish in the morning. Doesn't matter what day of the week it is these days, they all kind of blur together. I grab a cup of coffee and skim through the morning news and blogs, catch up on email, and then look at my todo list for the day. Then, I lately have been crawling back into bed and sleeping till noon. At noon I wake up, take care of things I need to, and then have lately been up till about 2 or 3 in the morning.

The weird thing is that from about 4pm till 8pm I'm dead tired. Half the time falling asleep on my couch for 30 min to an hour. But when 11pm hits I seem to get a second wind. Last night I looked up at the clock and it was suddenly 3:30am. I'd been tweaking some web stuff, reading, and playing Dark Cloud 2. I'm sure the video game had at least something to do with it, but I wasn't even that tired till about almost 4. I napped for a bit, then started in on my regular schedule.

This is one of the big reasons I want a job soon. I need that structure in my days.

I dig my Sony-Ericsson T68i a lot. The fact that I can sync it with my computer so easily has made it one of the most useful cell phones I've ever had. Of course, Sony-Ericsson had to go and release something even better than it. The T610 is one of their newest models. It appears to support everything their current one does but has much bigger screen, and a camera built in. The camera is kind of cool, though it isn't something I was necessarily craving in a phone. The screen is what really caught my attention. The one gripe I have about the T68i is that it's screen is small. It's very readable, but still quite small and I keep wishing there was just a bit more space on it. If Sony/AT&T offers any kinds of deals for upgrading when this phone goes out I will seriously consider it. [via Paolo [via Slashdot]]

Chris Pirillo posts the rules of Blog Club.

The first rule of Blog Club: you talk about Blog Club. The second rule of Blog Club: you TALK about Blog Club. (3) When someone says stop or goes limp, the conversation has begun. (4) Unlimited links in a post. (5) One post at a time. (6) No shoes. (7) Conversations go on as long as they have to. (8) If this is your first night at Blog Club, you have to Comment. [Chris Pirillo]

Unknown: "Accident, n.: A condition in which presence of mind is good, but absence of body is better." [Quotes of the Day]

One thing that's always annoyed me about the default behavior of Movable Type is that it both requires you to put in an email address and displays it. I have no problem putting one in if it's never going to show up on a page, but I already got bit by the Radio comments stuff (my email address was sniffed out in days of me using it to post). As a result I've made a small change to how comments work. I do require that people put in their email address, url is optional. If a person enters a url it will print their name with a link to that url. If they just put in an email address it will just print their name with no link to anything.

Also, I know I could probably google for this, but how does this email encoding stuff work. In the end it's still all plaintext. All someone has to do is pattern match off the character strings for '@' and '.'. The solutions I've seen seem to feel more like security through obscurity.

Geek time again.

Being an old unix geek, one of the things I was psyched about with OS X was being able to use the terminal. Sometimes I live almost completely in the command line (except for web browsing). While browsing around the other day I ran across a page with a bunch of articles on the OS X terminal. The one I found most interesting was one on making .term files for Terminal. These are files that when you doubleclick on them open up a new terminal window and run the command you have specified. You can also specify window size and where to display it when it opens.

So what I've done is created a bunch of these for standard things I run in a terminal window, like listing log files and sshing to other machines. Pretty nifty.

When I went to the doctor the other day he perscribed me some narcotic cough medicine. As he says, "narcotics are the best thing to stop a cough". He perscribed me something I hadn't had before called Tussionex. It's basicly hydrocodone with an antihistamine (i think, I'd have to go and doublecheck on that part). The problem isn't the taste, it's the consistancy. I'm used to cough syrup that is kind of syrupy and mediciney tasting. I'm not quite sure what the taste of this stuff is, but it's not too bad. The problem is it's thick, really thick. And it is kinda yellowish too. And it just doesn't even look real appealing. Luckily it goes down quickly and seems to start working really fast. How come nobody can come up with medicine that doesn't taste so icky (or have the consistancy of mucous).

Morgan turned off comments on her new blog. I wonder how many people who are more in the public eye have problems like this. I have enough problems here. I had turned on anonymous posting for a few days to see what it would be like and I just don't like it. I like the person posting to at least have an identity. It seems so impersonal otherwise.

Has anyone run into one of these? I'd love to see one of the video game news sites have an RSS feed. I googled around a bit yesterday, but came up empty. Anyone know if such a thing exists?

While reading through the Chimera board this morning I found a link to a cool product called Bookie. It allows you to share out your bookmarks via Rendezvous. Pretty cool! Now the next step is to allow you to point it at a url with bookmarks in it. That way I could access my bookmarks from anywhere.

I'm not sure where exactly I found the link to the More Stuff 4 Less Bargin Blog, but whoever I got it from I'll have to thank them. This blog lists all kinds of sales/rebates/coupons for snopping online. Some of them are pretty impressive, for instance:

Outpost.com - Western Digital 160GB WD1600JBRTL UATA100 8MB Buffer HD $159.99 After Rebate.
Outpost has the WD 160GB 72000 RPM special edition hard drive with controller card & 3 year warranty selling for $259.99.  A $100 rebate brings that price down to just $159.99 plus shipping.  Sales tax for AZ, CA, CT, OH, TX and NV. [More Stuff 4 Less Bargain Blog]

Quite a bargin I must say.

H. L. Mencken: "To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true!" [Quotes of the Day]

Dave Hyatt is finding himself completely sucked into Xenosaga. I can so sympathize. I was really torn between grabbing that or Dark Cloud 2. In the end I picked up Dark Cloud 2 because I really enjoyed the first one. The second one is amazing. So many little bits and pieces to the game that all fit together quite well. I'll be writing a mini-review in a while. And knowing that Xenosaga is waiting for me when I'm done makes me happy.

The results are in and yow! It's good chili! It's a tiny bit too hot, but it tastes really really good. I think if I were to do a second batch I'd cut down on the cayenne pepper a little bit (but not much). Yum.

Here's the recipe This came about after getting a chili recipe from a friend online. As I was looking around to find out more about chili I decided to be more daring and try something that was my own original recipe.

Ingredients

1. Cook bacon in the pot you will be using. I was using a dutch oven. Cook it down till it's almost crispy. Scoop bacon and put aside for bacon bits.
2. Add garlic and onion, let cook for about 2 minutes, stirring the whole time, till the onions start to soften.
3. Add the meat, saute it till it gets grey, but not really browned, add tomatos, and beer, bring everything to a boil then simmer at low heat for 30 minutes.
4. Add spices, and simmer for 1 hour.
5. Add honey and simmer for 30 min more.
6. Remove a bit of the hot liquid (or, use approximately 1 cup of water) and mix the flour and corn meal until blended. Add to chili pot and cook 5 minutes more to determine if more water or more thickening is needed. Stir to prevent sticking after adding the thickening.
7. Serve with whatever chili condements you like. I personally like lots of cheese.

So there goes. Warning for anyone making it, it's pretty hot. I recommend a beer with it to help cut the heat some.

I decided to go ahead with making chili today. I'd gotten a recipe from a friend of mine online a week or so ago and it had been kind of tugging at the back of my head. Unfortunately I started browsing around online. My big question was about the different kinds of chili peppers. There are a number of different varieties, and I wanted to make sure I used something good for this. In the end I decided to go kinda simple and use just a basic chili powder, though next time I'd like to try using actual chilis. So far it's been on the stove for around 40 minutes. I figure it's got around an hour and a quarter left to cook. Dinner will be late tonight. Once I've tasted it and decide that it's acceptable I'll post my recipe.

Jen over at What's Brewing was talking about going to the movies at The Brattle this weekend. It's one of my favorite places to see movies because they always have such a wonderful selection of things. There were a few things that looked interesting this month, but the next month they're showing a new print of Lawrence of Arabia. I've never seen it on a big screen of any kind, so I really want to go see this one. I've put it into my calendar.

Technorati recently introducted a feature called Top 50 Interesting Recent Blogs With Context. I took a glance at it this morning and notice that the first four entries were for BackBlog and HaloScan. Both are services that provide a comment systems for blogs (lots of people who use Blogger use it). I'm kind of wondering how these appeared in there because they really aren't blogs. The interesting blogs section is still fairly new and experimental, so I'm sure things like that will get filtered out eventually.

Here's a listing of the first six entries on the list (yes the first two are dulplicated also).

1. backBlog - 231 new blogs 814 blogs 10954 links
2. backBlog - 231 new blogs 814 blogs 10954 links
3. HaloScan.com - Free Weblog Commenting - 640 new blogs 2619 blogs 35356 links
4. HaloScan.com - Free Weblog Commenting - 640 new blogs 2619 blogs 35356 links
5. Weblogs at Harvard 13 new blogs 80 blogs 146 links
6. Exploding Cigar - 19 new blogs 74 blogs 168 links

Notice the huge difference in number of sites linking to the comments system. Which makes sense because there's probably that many blogs out there using them as a service. It's an interesting little glitch in the system, though one I'm guessing will disappear soon enough.

Penn Jillette: "Channeling is just bad ventriloquism. You use another voice, but people can see your lips moving." [Quotes of the Day]

I must be feeling better. I woke up at my typical time this morning, though I'm kind of fuzzy because I went to sleep really late. I think I'm going to quickly zoom over to Rosebud when it opens and grab some breakfast. Something that'll put me into a bit of a food coma so I can crawl right back into bed and pass out.

I also have a hankering for chili and want to make some. The only problem is that I don't have a big pot to make it in. I'm thinking of picking up a cast iron dutch oven to give it a try. The only problem is I'd have to season it before using it. On the other hand the price on a 5 quart one is just right (around $20, I'd actually really like a Le Creuset one, but those are more like $170). It would also mean I'd probably have to do a half batch of chili, since the full batch calls for a 6 quart pot. Of course I'm making this for just myself, so a half of the normal should be just fine.

This is very cool gallery of pictures of bullets in motion and hitting things. I thought the one above was pretty cool. There's also a cool one of an orange blowing up from being shot. (via boingboing)

From over on Instapundit via The Trademark Blog comes a tale of fish and beauty gone weird.

WHEN CROSS-BRANDING BECOMES SURREAL: Okay, I've got nothing against Barbie. And I like SpongeBob. But, somehow, the "SpongeBob Squarepants Barbie" just seems, well, weird.

You can imagine the marketing meeting: "It's synergy! Barbie's a classic, and SpongeBob's a hot new star!"

Okay, I don't think I can be surprised by anything anymore. Unless someone's actually gone and written Spongebob and Barbie fic.

Yesterday after upgrading my G3 to OS X 10.2.4 I decided that I should run a disk scan on it. I'd had a problem with my iTunes preferences getting completely lost and I like to run DiskWarrior on my drives around once a month (or every other month). What started as a simple task grew when it started taking quite a while to run. An hour went by, two, and then I looked up and it was looking for overlapped files (aka crosslinked files). I cursed to myself and let it run. 15 hours later it finished up and everything seems to be running just fine, if not a little snappier than before.

I wasn't going to even write about it, but Doc Searls is having hard drive problems too so it was fresh in my mind. He tried Drive 10, which from what I read may or may not have helped some. When I had problems with my firewire drive and needed to fix it I did a bunch of research on disk tools and everything I read said DiskWarrior is the best thing out there. So I don't even bother with anything else and it has treated me very well. This does bring up one gripe for me though. Apple really needs to have a good fsck that comes with OS X.

BoingBoing reports that you can find Orwell's works online at Orwell.ru. There are full texts of Orwell novels and essays, galleries of vintage covers, and more. One thing I thought was cool is that they've even got versions of his stuff in other languages.

Yesterday morning I was half asleep at around 10am and someone started ringing the buzzer for my apartment. I crawled out of bed and buzzed the person in and looked to see my dad! He handed me a Mr. Coffee coffee maker and said he just wanted to drop it off while he was around. It seems that the other day when they stopped by he left his credit card at the retaurant we went to. So while he was driving up to get that he brought an extra coffee maker they had around the house (I'd been saying I wanted one earlier when they were visiting).

My parents are pretty cool.

Speaking of watching the web server log file. I was just now watching it for a few and noticed someone went to the guestbook and posted something. I had a brief moment of joy. People don't post to my guestbook that often. I looked to see what they posted and joy turned to sorrow. They posted a link. A link to some site called 1Heluva.com which supposedly will drive more traffic to your web site and get you rebates on your purchases. I just deleted the link. Bastards.

Now more than ever I can use all the luck I can get. So when I woke up at 5am this morning I croaked out "rabbit rabbit". Though it almost sounded more like Ribbet Ribbet.

Robertson Davies
"A happy childhood has spoiled many a promising life." [Quotes of the Day]

Took the first step to converting all the content on my site to the new look and feel. It's going pretty well so far, but then again I've only done the guestbook. One thing I'm noticing is that CSS really lets my base page be quite simple. And hopefully without much effort I'll be able to have my page be xhtml compliant.

Daniel H. Steinberg's blog over at O'Reilly talks about setting up a lab of Macs for an XP (Extreme Programming) workshop. This really helps illustrate part of why I like OS X so much. Yes, unix has been around forever and these tasks aren't necessarily difficult, but the difference is everything just works well together. Networking, web serving, etc. I can just imagine the hassles getting a Windows environment set up to do the same thing.

Lockergnome has links to a number of cool USB products from japan:

• USB Toothbrush, for those times when you're playing nethack and don't want to stop but your mouth feels like something died in it.
• USB Coffee Mug, or is it a coffee warmer? Either would rock. I always hate having to get up and reheat my coffee in the microwave.
• USB Electric Blanket, to help keep you warm on those cold winter nights. Though my laptop gets pretty damn warm on its own. I don't think I'd need this one.