Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior.

Chinese SWAT rollin' the Segways.

2008-07-02T08:47:00.001-07:00

I caught this on Engadget this morning. It seems that our weak dollar may be translating to a new use for Segways in China. As usual the Engadget staff cobbled together a caption contest. My personal favorite is:

Josh T: "Stop! Step out of the vehicle and agree to be my friend."

Check the Engadget post for more fun quotes.

Shoes + Internets + Robots = <3

2008-06-30T09:16:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had a situation where you feel awkward about trying to explain to someone about a habit that may seem totally fine to you, but they just can't grasp the importance of it. I had this very experience with a good friend over the weekend while he helped me move.

So you know, there are boxes stacked everywhere. We're lifting, pushing, heaving, sweating, grunting, whining, etc. It's about 90 degrees... At one point we get to the clothes and shoes boxes. They're large, very large, and I have quite a few of them. As any good friend would he poked fun at the sheer amount of clothing that must be in those boxes, and I took it.

When we got to the box labeled "shoes" and he just stopped in his tracks. As I watched him staring at this box in awe he said "Uhh, that box is shoes?" "Yeah, shoes" "Wow man, that's a lot of shoes" "Yep, I like shoes". Though I have not taken time to study how many pair of shoes a man has on average in this region, or within a specific age demographic I surely do not feel like my shoe collection is that large. Anyway fast forward to today and I find this WONDERFUL story about Zappos employing an army of robots at their fulfillment warehouse. I don’t know about you but knowing that there is an army of robots that I can control by ordering shoes makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. Besides, I need a nice cream colored slip on to go with my light khaki suit, right?

Found via: Engadget

I wish this was a miniseries on Discovery Channel.

2008-06-24T14:07:00.001-07:00

Good morning.

2008-06-24T06:55:00.000-07:00

Somoene must have been thinking about me last night and wanted to make sure I knew about it this morning.

XKCD like totally got my back.

2008-06-23T14:02:00.000-07:00

This is perfect.

The spam continues.

2007-10-27T11:38:00.000-07:00

My attempt to share the brightest and best time sinks on teh internets continues.

Clever.

2007-10-23T08:57:00.000-07:00

I wish that I am clever enough to come up with that hobby. Thanks XKCD!

Fry's Electronics Ads for Seattle / Renton - Valve Black box bundles too!

2007-10-11T21:49:00.000-07:00

Hello geeks,

Here is the ad for Fry's electronics in Renton for Oct. 12th to 16th:

http://local.ads.nwsource.com/ads/sites/frys/friday/

Valve's Black Box is NOT dead. It looks like it's just not going to be sold on Steam or in retail channels. Good news is that you can get it for FREE with most ATI Radeon 2600XT cards on Newegg.com. Check this link.

More late night food fun!

2007-10-06T23:23:00.000-07:00

So I was not feeling so hot today. Supposed to go to a show tonight with a friend and decided to bail out... What's the next best thing to going out you ask? Roasting
chicken!!!

I decided to read up on why you would want to brine a chicken. It all makes sense. I used a 3qt brine with a 1/4cup of sea salt per qt. In addition to that I added savory, chili powder, 8 cloves of minced garlic, and some black pepper. I've been pretty happy with how it turned out, the chicken was a bit salty, but not bad.

Next up on the menu was my first Risotto. Again, it turned out very good. Since this was my first try I decided to purchase a mix from Trader Joes and read what they had in it. It was short grain Italian rice, and a seasoning packet that was basiclly salt, dried chicken stock, dried wine, starch and a bit of dried mushrooms. While reading up on Risotto I figured that I'd get the rice started with some shallots, garlic, and olive oil. That is where I learned my first lesson. It's true that when you want to wilt some herbs/garlic/etc that you remove it prior to adding the rice and then re-add it later when you're simmering it. I didn't do this and ended up browning a little bit of my garlic too much.

ANYWAY... Things turned out pretty good, since I planned to use half of the seasoning packet (I was not prepared with white wine and stock .... I would have skipped the packet if I had that) and then decided to simmer 2 cups of water with a 14.5oz can of chicken stock. I just went by the book adding stock until it simmered off until I was getting low on stock. At that point I decided to turn down my heat a little, add some hot stock and cover it for a bit.

While the rice was cooking I chopped up some snow peas, red bell pepper and basil (for garnish). I let the rice simmer on low for about 5 minutes, and I figured that I was simmering it uncovered while slowly adding the hot broth for about 20 minutes. When I removed the top the rice was much closer to being done and I had about a cup of hot broth left. I added the veggies and a ladle of hot broth and covered it again, I figured that I was adding about a cup of cold stuff so I wanted to let it sit up top and warm up, it worked out pretty good. About two minutes later I removed the top and just got back to stirring and adding broth until the rice was tender.

I have to say that I was quite surprised in how well this turned out. Sure am looking forward to doing this again, I'm going to need to stock up on the chicken or veggie stock! I want to try grapes and almonds, or spinach and walnuts... actually any nut and veggie sounds good.

When I plated everything my thought was to put some parmasian on top of the rosotto with a little of basil. It was PERFECT. Oh, yeah, and the chicken was yummy too.

PICTURE TIME!

I almost picked up an iPhone last week.

2007-10-01T09:24:00.000-07:00

It was finally time for me to make that jump, to throw $300 at another toy I didn't really need. With the 4GB version heavily discounted at the Apple store I felt that paying for AT&T service would be okay since the device, well, it's just so darn pretty. The third party application scene looked like it was thriving... Then of course, 1.1.1 dropped. Guess I will be holding off or just sticking with the safe choice like a Blackberry Curve on T-Mobile. Poop on you, Apple.

Think Different, iPhone version:

Original Think Different commercial:

Do I need to choke a.... ?

2007-09-13T21:08:00.000-07:00

Wayne Brady.

What else can I say about this may that has not already been said. He's the smartest dressed man on the planet. He's got rhythm. He can hold a note. And the man knows how to make people laugh, a lot.

So I'm watching some sort of "sing the missing lyric" gameshows on some channel on TV right now. He's hosting, knowing that WIZZLE BRIZZLE has his standards means I'm not dissapointed. It's so wonderful.

That's it, Wayne Brady = Wonderful.

Ask a Ninja?

2007-09-12T19:12:00.003-07:00

Love.

Bad times.

2007-09-11T20:19:00.000-07:00

I hope to continue this subject of "bad times" going forward, because, it's important to share our feelings.

Bad times are when you can't find your beer glass. Only to realize it is empty in the sink. :(

Have a good night.

News is a local company picked these guys up.

2007-08-29T21:39:00.001-07:00

So what if Redmond has their cute Photosynth. This looks a lot more useful right now in digital media applications.

Rick Bayless, I love you.

2007-08-29T20:52:00.000-07:00

Rick,

Once again, you've turned my kitchen into something that'll take me a solid hour to clean. You sweet tomatillo lovin' man you! Our time has been short, I've only known you months, but I feel that I would be able to spend the rest of my life with you. Keep that tank top on mister, DIG ME A FIRE PIT! Tonight after seeing Salsa and Tips on my local PBS afflilate you had an interesting salsa verde with chipotle chilies. You mixed this salsa up and decided that some shirmp, onions, and a nice hot skillet would be a good pairing with this salsa.

You. Were. Right.

Though I didn't have any shrimp I did have some chicken thighs. So I grilled and shredded them, made the salsa, and then heated the shredded chicken and salsa in a skillet with some onions that I sweated. Goodness. These tacos were the yum, that is for sure.

Well, off to clean the kitchen. Don't worry Rick, I forgive you.

- Vincent

Pictures!

The video parade continues...

2007-08-28T10:40:00.000-07:00

This might be a little NSFW (audio has dirty words). So either keep it down or check it out at home because th1z 1z t3h p\\'nZ0r.

Closer to 30 than 20, and I still have 10 toe nails!

2007-08-21T19:57:00.000-07:00

Good news!

My 26th birthday went off without a hitch. Waking up as my first full day as a 26 year old did not include going to a emergency clinic to make sure I didn't need an embedded toe-nail surgically removed.

Phew, what a relief right?

It gets better from there...

1) I got six bottles of wonderful wine.
2) A chef comped me a yummy dinner.
3) I was not bleeding in the morning (extra bonus).
4) My weekend post-birthday was spent in a wonder corner in north-central Washington. There was no sounds, no traffic, planes, people, etc. My time was spent drinking, making friends, and doing stuff I've never done (changing my break pads, being a grease monkey). Okay, so I totally understand that changing break pads is really nothing special, let's remind ourselves that some important things I take into consideration like matching my socks with my shirt. Nuff said.
5) I am on vacation for another week and a half or so, and I have a GOAL!

I would like to draft ANYONE to help me on compleating a full deck of Pabst Blue Ribbon bottle caps for a 52 card deck. For those of you who don't know here is what I am talking about.

That's right, each bottle of PBR has a "money card" on it! And I want to play some Go Fish by Auguest 30th. 2007.

So, anyone who wants to donate their time please send all PBR bottle caps to:

C/O PBR Go Fish 2007
905 1/2 20th Ave S
Seattle, Wa 98144

If I am able to complete a full deck I promise to post some pictures of some hardcore Go Fish games at my kitchen table. That should be enough to motivate you, and heck, there is beer involved.

Thanks in advance,

Vincent

I'm a sap.

2007-08-14T18:40:00.000-07:00

I've got a not so secret crush on Feist now.

Nothing like post-emo-punk-singer-sogwriters fron Canada.

Since I am on the subject.

2007-08-09T20:50:00.000-07:00

I still love reading the rants of Maddox.

Anyone need another iPhone Review?

How about Marketing for Jackasses?

Have a good night.

Music: Architecture in Helsinki
Movies(or Television): Extras
Sites: XKCD

Are consumers being protected?

2007-08-09T20:07:00.000-07:00

1) All cell phones in North America(barring pre-paid devices, and possibly Mexico has something else going on but I doubt it) are sold on a subsided business model.

2) The iPhone is not capable of using "any network". For this to be possible it would need to have radio chipsets for CDMA, UMTS/W-CDMA, iDEN, GSM/GPRS/EDGE, AMPS, etc. The Verizon lawyer is just plain lying. I mean well, it would be possible but the device would be an inch thicker, at least 10 ounces heavier, oh and it would cost more. It's the iPhone, not the iBrick.

2a) I suppose that if there was a Global System for Mobile Communication that everyone (government, corporation, etc) decided to use we would not have this problem. We decided (That's the carriers based in America... Public and privately funded companies) to use whatever technology seemed to do the job right at the time. Planning was poor and the fractured networks in the United States will continue to hinder the sort of "free movement" that we should have. Hey, if you want to move your phone to another carrier whenever you want move to Europe. They got it right the first time.

2b) It's true that tear down report from iSuppli shows that Apple/AT&T (who knows how they divide device profit) make a decent profit from the iPhone. Here's the thing. Apple is not Motorola or Nokia, they are not "married" to making profit off their phones that will be sold at a lost like most if not all except for the iPhone and PrePaid cellular phones are. They were in the position to go to a carrier and say "we're going to sell you this device at 3% below retail price. We make the cash of of the hardware and you're lucky we picked you since everyone and their Denali driving mother will want one of these motherfuckers.

3) The jackass from Columbia law is making a flawed point using televisions as a compairision. The television is just too old to be used as a good example for comparison to a cellular phone. If we decided to use something like a Direct TV or Dish Network cable box (which has a contract) it'd be a lot harder for him to prove that what AT&T is doing should be considered wrong.

4) Who wants the open spectrum? Oh.. A software company? This already should be drawing a few more questions as they're profit model is not built into investing billions in building a network and then pulling a profit from subscribers, contracts, etc. Nope, not these hippies. They're platform agnostic. :P

I'm all about more consumer rights and less corporate welfare and all that bullshit. Though I don't like to think that we're seeing large companies pulling the wool over our already naive Congress.

I love Passover.

2007-03-27T20:39:00.000-07:00

One reason: Passover Coke (AKA "Kosher Coke")

I love soda. All forms. If it's fizzy, it's my thing. In fact when I decided to give up flavored sodas my substitute was sparkling mineral water. I like mineral water as much as those two dudes in Heathers.

Anyway. Back to Passover. During this fine Jewish holiday there is a nice little stock of kosher Coca-Cola that is stocked at many local supermarkets. The thing is "high fructose corn syrup" is not kosher, oh and it tastes like shit. Those fuckers at Coca-Coke have to make it with SUGAR. The ORIGINAL recipe(proof). When I have some sort of wine bar, Irish brew pub, or whatever I will make sure to purchase thousands of dollhairs of Kosher Coke during Passover to keep my patrons happy.

Thank God (not Jesus) for Passover.

New digs. Yeah.

2006-11-30T21:44:00.000-08:00

That's right, no more burbs for me. Yay!

The move was short, the move-in was LONG AND PAINFUL. Though, things have settled down and I am almost ready to spend hours on my ass playing video games again wondering if there is something else worth doing.

While getting back into the groove of reading worthless shit online I stumbled across this wonderful blog. I think that my good friend Mr. Joel would love it. Think that I am going to send him a link to the SDJRJR and have him read this post. Yes, it's cunning, I know. The use of commas, is also very cunning, indeed. My prose may be shallow, boring, lacking anything that makes you want to read more, etc. At least I use a lot of commas. *patting myself on the back*

Tomorrow I should have a 40" LCD HDTV and plan to use an antenna with it. Can't wait. Fucking cable man is the devil. When I can pay for the 7 channels I want to watch I will sign up.

Actually, I got on a little bit of a purge and buy-new-crap binge while moving in. I am now the proud owner of: A Space Age Toaster Oven(Really, it is almost as neat as my rice cooker), some new knives, an espresso machine(Which, in a future post I will detail how it is the finest thing I've bought and also... a bit depressing as now coffee from Starbucks is near undrinkable...) and a Wii.. I'm pretty happy with it. Though my Christ-mass-budget is not so massive. :P Whoops.

Oh, and to all you people(or the three that stop by here) who read my rant about using AllofMP3.com you're too late. Looks like someone paid off a Russian official and the site is going bye-bye until they relocate to another country that has not been paid off by the RIAA. I'm all about artists getting paid, so how about charging 5.00 for a CD and splitting it with the artist. I am sure all of the "cost" that goes into the current production of CDs can be reduced, just lay off 90% of your marketing staff and let the music sell itself. We blog about it, we talk about it with our friends, we go to shows, we listen to the radio(independent...when available)... We don't need anything else to try and sell us "art".

Music: Society Of Rockets
Movie: The Big Lebowski
Link: La-La, trade your music collection for $1.75 per CD. It's NEAT!

Quarters. I played that once.... Once.

2006-11-03T20:23:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time there was a young man that thought he was a
gifted when it came to stupid games. Games like Quarters. Oh, how he was so very wrong. As he was spending time with his closest friends in a land far far away he decided to play this game with another strapping young man who happened to be a sailor with the Navy. Sean, the faux-gifted geek thought to himself that this would be a fun way to pass the time and drink beer, what could be better? While his opponent sat across him, sneaking a sly grin in anticipation of pure pwnage.

This game of Quarters was by far, the most pathetic show of what is displayed in the video. Our underdog watched in amazement while chugging one beer as Russell sank another quarter into the next beer he was going to drink. This was a crushing blow as Sean knew that he had no chance, most likely, Russell was just playing with him, seeing how long he last drinking beer after beer just to hand the coin to to him.

And yes, it gets worse. Sean may suck at quarters, but he tries hard at everything he does, including drinking pints of beer quickly. If I say so myself, I can really open up the throat and pour them down. It's very pleasing in fact! Bad news is when you chug a quarter along with the beer, that's total bummer. I really freaked out, enough to throw a punch at another great friend of mine, which I regret.

The bright side is that it came out about 12 hours later with a very pleasurable clink in the toilet. Anyway, enjoy the video.

<

Woah nelly! NERD ALERT!

2006-09-20T20:14:00.000-07:00

While waiting for my yummy roasted beef to finish, drinking decaf coffee, being a nerd, I came across a cool link in a story on The Register. If you don't read El Reg and have any interest in the "tech" industry I strongly recommend checking these blokes out. Most of their writing has that dry/witty feeling that keeps me coming back to the original Office and Coupling.

Anyway, they're getting pretty deep into what we can expect with the first official GPGPUs and how the ATI+AMD merger may fit into it. Blah blah blah.

So there is a link there to Graphstream, and here, is a gamers holy grail. Who wants a dell when they can have THIS!

So what if it's overkill. That'd be the best 20k I've ever spent.

Music: TEH ROADHOUSE!
Movie: Midnight Cowboy
Stuff: Google, Celebrate your freedom to read.

Art critic? Literary Critic? How about Video Game critic?

2006-09-16T13:17:00.000-07:00

More often then not I am reading something about video games, computer-ish-stuff, future tech crap, cooking, vacuums, etc. I've become quite jaded with both video game and computer equipment reviews. It's the same re-hashing of what the reviewer thinks is important to the masses that the product is aimed at.

A good example is that video card coolers that do not have the ability to exhaust hot air out of a case is considered a "con". Which is usually delved into in (biased) detail in reviews of coolers that don't do it. Some asshole thinks he/she knows what they're talking about, even though they're usually someone that is so obsessed with being on the bleeding edge and ahead of their peers that they don't/cant prove the it's actually bad to not exhaust hot air inside of a computer case. What I am getting at is that people perceive what they think is right and wrong by what they read, right? Anyway, this is another debate, but my point is that most of the stuff I read online is crap, and I know it, I should just start reading Star, The Globe, World Weekly News, and Soap Opera Digest...

The good news is a brave soul decided to take a classic approach in reviewing a video game. Mr. Stanci over at Game Career Guide has published his first part of "Katamari Damacy - A Critique: Biographical and New Critical Analysis".

It's a good read... Though it's short and I have to wait two weeks for more. Oh well.

Music: Tegan and Sara
Movie: Half Nelson
Stuff: Google hack.... Unsecured network based webcams.

Drawing Program - The future of 3D modeling?

2006-09-16T12:48:00.000-07:00


Just watch this. I'm looking forward to playing with it.

Toes are (still) fragile.

2006-08-30T21:41:00.000-07:00

August in a nutshell.

I turned 25.
Mess up another toe (see photo).
Realized I was half way to 30.
Started Physical Therapy(Half way to 30...).
Saw Heartbreak House.
Found a new wine from Girardet Vinyards in Oregon, it's the 2003 Grand Rouge. YUMMY.
Had a wonderful birthday party with friends I don't usually see.
Drank far too much.
Saw Harvey Danger twice, at Neumo's and Red Hook.
Celebrated a good friends birthday two weeks before mine.

Oher stuff. Kinda funny you know?

The best frozen pizza in the universe. (no lie)

2006-08-10T22:22:00.000-07:00

Hidey ho' there neighbors!

Ever have that frozen pizza that you "upgraded" before throwing it in the oven? Well I'm about to tell you the secret to making sure it is the best you've ever had every time!

Tonight I was walking through my local Albertons looking for something to cook for dinner. There were quite a few pieces of dead animal that looked tempting but in the end I kept ending up looking at the four cheese Freshetta with the self rising crust. Now if you're ever in the market for a good frozen pizza give this brand a try, I feel that what stands it apart is a much better sauce which really brings it together. The "Brickoven" style is pretty crappy, and I have not tried their thin crust, but I'd steer clear of that as well.

So, back to the 100% guaranteed way to make kick ass pizza at home or your money back.

I decided while walking around with my pizza that I needed three other things.

1. MORE CHEESE!
2. TOMATOES (roma)
3. B A S I L

This of course. Is really all the toppings needed for the best pizza, ever, ever, ever, duh.

So I got home and proceeded to get to work. Slicing the tomato, chopping the basil and leaving a few full sized leafs and then (this was the hard part) opening the ziploc style pre-grated mozzarella cheese bag thingy. I removed the pizza from the freezer and then opened the box, there was this cute sticker saying that they were better then delivery pizza, which I do not agree with. They can't hold a candle to delivery pizza for one very simple reason, I don't have to do anything else then to hand some retard $12.00 to eat, well, that and make a phone call but you know what I'm saying. ANYWAY.

Looking at the pizza in front of me I decided to first tear 6-7 full basil leaves into quarter and half pieces and evenly distribute them on the pizza. This feat was followed with yours truly laying down sliced roma tomatoes on this pie o' love. I continued by then taking my chopped basil of around 5-6 full pieces and sprinkling it all over concentrating on the crust area and then topping this with an additional two handfuls (about 1/3-1/2 of a cup of shredded mozzarella) cheese so that I could still see the tomatoes and stuff but they had some cheese on them.

This is where I had my breakthrough.

When Mr. Pizza Rocket Scientist designs a frozen pizza it must go a little something like this when they're doing the cooking directions:

X amount of weight at 30 degrees will need Y amount of heat and Z amount of time to cook properly.

I realized that I never take into account that my damn toppings are not frozen. My piazzas always turn out underdone on the bottom or overdone on the top. I decided to do was to put the pizza with the new toppings back in the freezer for 20 minutes and play around with the cooking time. I figured since I am adding mass which will take more energy to heat I'll need to cook it longer, but I didn't want to worry about overcooking it so I reduced the temp from 400 to 375. Then I figured if I cook it on the minimum time of 19 minutes at this temp it'll end up "just done" with a soft bottom but the top will not be bubbling away. At which point I can crank the heat to 450 for 3-5 minutes to allow the bottom burner in the oven to turn on thus allowing more heat on the bottom and getting the top to brown a little too with the temp spike.

It worked well. Very well. I almost slit my wrists after eating the first piece so I would never be disappointed with a pizza ever again, but after realizing that I still had half a beer left I knew that I would never be able to go through with it.

I'm going to eat the rest of it for breakfast.... Can't wait to get to sleep so I can wake up and eat it!

Music: Earlimart
Movie: Talladega Nights
Stuff: Zebasearch.com

Good reading!

2006-06-29T13:17:00.000-07:00

When you have a moment go read this>. Just do it.

More stuff soon.

So, I'm kinda drunk.

2006-06-23T22:36:00.000-07:00

Have you ever seen Ghost World? I just spent the this evening watching while drowning myself in one wonderful bottle of Malbec and a couple Sessions(DID YOU DORKS SEE THE .CFM.... I DID! WOOT). So back to this movie. It was good, not too long, not too short, not boring, not too much to handle. In the end I kind of hate it. When I see Enid do her thing with Seymore I can't help but to think how pathetic I was (or still am?) when I had my first real bond with a woman, painful stuff, which I think everyone has to go through... Who knows if the writer knew how powerful their novel, screenplay, or whatever they called their work can be. The feeling that I took away from this movie is how close it really is to being that age or being that nerdy.

So. Women. Understand that we're all Seymore at heart. OR we're really fucking dumb so we better be rich or make Ron Jeremy want to retire.

More exciting goodness can be found at TrinityWorks! These crazy Japanese fuckers decided to code a kernel level driver to run a Mac Pro Keyboard in T3h w1nd03z. Best part is the EJECT key works now. I'm a fan and for $24.ish price that I can afford, good work consumer friendly developer!

It's been a long week of playing with Vista (somehow killing my Windows Installer on a separate partition, WTF!) giving Windows XP-N a try and feeling it is a letdown like everyone else says. The good news is I decided to get less-lazy and figure out how to re-order my retail version of XP PRO... Which ended up costing $31.50. Good news is that it will be a new install disc (SP2, woot) with a new key (find my old disc and I have two copies MWUWUWUAAAHAHA).

Err... Other than that nothing else is that exciting. Guess I am going to go see Dick the 3rd tomorrow. Which should prove to be a good time as the last show I saw was LES MIS and I really enjoyed it. Live theatre is fun!

Pancakes are wonderful.

Movie: So, some assholes killed a few athletes. Now we're going to kill the people who devised this plan and more radical people can suicidee bomb us. Err, good idea. Some guy made a movie about this. Just what we needed was proof that trying to do something like this does not help. You end up making them hate you more, it's easier to recruit people, etc.
Music: G.
Misc: OS ES ECKS EIGHTY SIX

Warning....

2006-06-19T15:22:00.000-07:00

I stumbled across this new post at BBSpot. Much funny, yes?

It's pretty outside, kinda makes my eyes hurt.

So many new toys, so little time.

2006-06-13T22:00:00.000-07:00

So this last couple weeks have been pretty fun. Starting with AllofMP3, then Last.fm and now the Vista Beta (which I am in right now). Super fun!

I'm pondering the idea of writing up a short review of each of them just to give myself an idea if it is something I can do in the first place. The only thing on my mind right now is how much it is going to cost me to upgrade each of my boxes to Vista. I'm really hoping our boys in Redmond understand we're not made of money. Our friends down in Cupertino decided to start selling a "Family Pack" which includes 5 licenses for only $199.99, now that's a bargain! Of course, it's basically a yearly fee + your .Mac and whatever else they like to tack on, iPod, iLife, iWork, iEye, iAre, iYou, iMe...

Link and I were discussing this... I told him that they should sell me 3-5 copies for less than $300.00, call it a personal license pack or something. You know, can't be a business, can't buy more than this or some crap, can't resell it.... blah blah blah. I'm down with making a few bucks from the big business. How about making it easier for your consumers to move into this. He contended that this must have been at least talked about at Microsoft as, if we're thinking about it, some other guy(or girl...) must have already.

This is smooth, it feels like Windows. Though, if anything I'd like a damn shell, something with a command line. So I can say something to my friends using bash on a regular basis.

Oh well, I'm a point and clicker. :(

Update at 11....

2006-06-08T22:33:00.000-07:00

Quicky.

1) Toe still hurts.
2) Week is almost over (happy!)
3) I have too many things going on right now. No more weddings and pregnant women. Kthx.
4) Realizing the cover letter, resume, and job search is 2 years late.
5) www.gormetsleuth.com is crazy, thanks there Engineer.
6) Check out www.last.fm good shiet!

oh. and. http://mdkathon.deviantart.com ANSI FOR THE MASSES!

We ARE all going to melt. Told joo so.

2006-05-30T21:56:00.000-07:00

I'm still on the fence on seeing Al Gore's film/documentary "An Inconvenient Truth". Looks to be a depressing ride with our tour guide that used to be the next President of the United States. Wonder what that would of been like. Anyway, I just don't know if I want to deal with the doom and gloom we're all going to melt, blah, blah, blah. I'm sure it'll be easier to watch then Moore's usual stuff that I have never really connected with.

Okay, I'm sold. Maybe sometime next week.

Looks like the man is at it again trying to tell us that we're not allowed to like anything that we don't buy from them at full price. I still don't understand why the dough-heads at the RIAA, MPAA, BSA, etc. Think all this fuss is going to acclomplish other then ongoing revolt from their customers. If I was able to afford all the music I have downloaded, movies swiped on bit-torrent, and video games provided to me from friends, family, and the gawsh durn internet I'd need to be rolling bank account that would contend with Mr. Gates himself.

Okay, so that may have been a little blown out of proportion. My point is that from all the people I know that do use piracy as a tool to bring entertainment is because they cant afford to buy everything they want. And if it can be had for free then WHY NOT if they were not going to buy it in the first place. Let me watch that movie, enjoy that video game, rock out to that new star you're pushing. Maybe next time I'll throw my money your way because I believe in the quality of your products... I spend about 50% more money each year on music for example because I find so much stuff online that I download or listen to at soma.fm that I really enjoy.

So take your part and reach out to your congressman to oppose the SIRA bill.

I have a killer headache and I blame caffeine.

Some music to purchase at AllofMP3 this week:

Earlimart
The Invisible Cities
Mates of State
The Raconteurs
ELLIOT! (like this one)

Or -ANYTHING- found on our wonderful hometown Barsuk Records!

Er.. Time for pie and ice cream. Oh, and this depressing stuff too.

Yes I like the spinach salad. Where else can you eat HARD BOILED EGGS and ONION in chorus?

2006-05-30T19:13:00.000-07:00

It's already gone... The whole thing. Two hard boiled eggs, a healthy amount of spinach, red onion, some of those tomatoes... salt, pepper, dressing. All in my belly. It had some friends along for the ride as well! There was leftover bbq'd pork(YUM), mustard, two kinds, yes I am daring! Oh, and some bread. I have been told this is what you call a sandwich, but I don't know where the sand is. :(

I really do love spinach salads, but when I make them the only thing I am excited for is the eggs and onion. Alone they're no fun, but together, oh, let's take a moment to catch our breath. Bad breath that is. It's a fact the the eggs will be doing something else to make my breath seem like a minor hygiene flaw.

So I was reading that entry in Wikipedia and this fact shocked me:

Environmental impact
Livestock are a significant contributing factor to the greenhouse effect, accounting for around 20% of global methane emissions[2]. Less than 10% of the total greenhouse gas emissions from livestock is produced by animal flatulence; most is produced by animal burping. Livestock in New Zealand account for 60% of the country's greenhouse gas emissions[3]. Livestock in Australia contribute approximately 14% of that country's greenhouse gas emissions [4].

So once we all have solar powered cars made out of recycled beer bottles and paper plates we're still going to melt. If I didn't like to eat medium-rare steaks and cheeseburgers we could reduce a hell of a lot of those greenhouse gases.

Oh, and if you haven't already it's time to get on AllofMP3 and leach away. The record companies are turning up the heat and Russia wants to make our fat cats happy, rr they're taking payoffs from the bastards that charge us $20.00 for a new CD... It does not matter why, but when will this site close? If you're not familer with this I'll break down the site. You can find just about ANY song/album on there in digital format, you pay them for the amount of "data" transferred, not the song or album. So there is no royalty payment to the record industry. You can choose what bitrate you want and pay for the amount of data that will be downloaded. I'm a happy camper when a CD costs about $2.00.

Get it while the gettin' is good!

When wool goes wrong...

2006-05-25T12:32:00.000-07:00

I love catching up on old websites I forgot about. Much like finding that beer you forgot you loved so much... To my surprise I found a T-shirt on this site that I think quite a few people I know would go crazy over. I've never been much of a knitter but there have been times that I have felt surrounded by them, because, really, I was surrounded by them. It's nice having these sort of handy people around because you're usually going to be guaranteed some badass socks, hats, and scarves or even... creatures if you ask nicely.

If you're in the club then you should get the fricking T-Shirt right?

Chocolate cake is a nice surprise, a broken toe is not.

2006-05-24T21:18:00.000-07:00

So it's been an interesting few days for yours truly... My weekend was full of sneezing, coughing, and other stuff related to your run of the mill sinus infection which I usually have 2-3 times a year. Though I have to say this one hasn't been fun at all. The nice doctor I visited a couple days ago turned me onto some pretty hardcore nasal spray which is working well.

My subconscious must have not been fulfilled with my sickness and decided to make sure I am limping around too. Last night while... putting on a pair of jeans... I tripped and stubbed my toe something fierce. It's all downhill from here I'm thinking. Sure. I've got a hell of a bruise but I'm feeling pretty good. I'll take one more day off from work to ice it and cough up the rest of my mucus collection in my lungs. So while I am on the phone with one of my co-workers letting them know I am not going to make it in the following day I decided (or... my subconscious did) to stub it again. So I'm taking it easy here and using otter pops as an icepack.

I'm off to the doctor again to make sure I don't need to get my pinky toe replaced. Btw I am stealing my title from our local Potato Engineer. She's usually up to no good using the system the way it was designed to be used, and other crazy things like thinking for herself, etc. Go say hi to her!

So, this morning, while drinking my cup of Joe and viewing the video Link posted I had a thought. All of this wonderful digging for another cause of 9/11 is hunky dory and all. Let's run with this for a sec...

Someone(or two...) want to make sure a known/upcoming terrorist attack is felt as a crushing blow to the populous..

They also have other motives, possibly personal, or merely business related.

Oh, and they're(both of them) the fucking "commander in chief" of the "free world"... Yeah, I'm sure with 1+ million in funds(that some assholes are begging for...) which can be spent on supporting better efforts of reforming our government (how about voting for better candidates, sending your money to them, or something else.. fuck.. ANYTHING ELSE...).

I guess what I am saying is that we already have thousands dead between 9/11 and Iraq. War is never something that will make things right again. We need to remember to focus on what we can change, not what we can't change, it's just good business. In the next 10 years we need to start selling to the people who REALLY want to kill us now. :P.

Music: Bob Dylan (happy birthday!!!)

Movie: The New World

Trailer: X-Men: The Last Stand

Xbox 720 coming soon!

2006-05-24T21:17:00.000-07:00

It's fairly wonderful when someone comments with more then "right on" or "you suck". Today I am going to respond to Link's thoughts on my last post on the front page. It’s no lie that I love the sound of my own voice(or... writing voice?) so we're going have this out right here.

The response to "Your Mom is magic.." found on the comments page:

Link said..."If you are looking for a social networking site that actually has a "goal" in mind... you might want to check out Linked In. Other than that, I don't think you are going to be able to fight the ease of use and silly nature that MySpace allows. Why exactly did you build a MySpace profile if you hate it that much? Second, taking it in the teeth would be something along the lines of large droves of people switching to MacOS or Linux... unfortunately, people are excited about the Mac because they WILL be able to run windows on it. If people were that into another operating system, they would have purchased a Mac long ago... The only people taking it in the teeth are the vendors building "Vista only" software who are ready to ship, and coincidentally losing tons of dollars because of M$FTs decision to hold off. Now put that in your cauldron and "magic" it..."

Just to clear up the MySpace thing real quick. I made a profile because I felt that I should at least give it a chance even if it has never really interested me. Usually when 50 million or so people can put up with something on the internet it can't be all that bad. Of course I know now that myspace is about as rewarding as a frontal lobotomy. Who knows what will be in store for www.myspace.com/wehaveyourbaby, I mean, I fucking stole the name "wehaveyourbaby" from Without Influence, heh. Oh, most of the asshats on Linked In (like you) must be thinking "I have a MySpace site to be a Real Unique Person(TM) so now I need to have a Linked In account! Now I can make sure everyone knows my job title and company I work for, yay! This is productivity at it's finest." Whatever... waste of time...

It's not that I'm a hater of M$oft but they have done nothing special in the last five years(or 11 years, as XP is just Windows 95 SP15). They did get Xbox-95 out the door and also Xbox-98(err 360) which I will own once I have $400.00 burning a hole in my pocket. But the days of innovation in Redmond are numbered. Sure, We'll see new cool shit after delays, botched releases, etc(Tablet, and Tablet SP2 oragami...HAHAHA!). Will we ever see anything groundbreaking again(or on schedule)? Go take a look at I, Cringely on PBS. Here is a quote from this story...

"If Microsoft really wanted to compete -- if they really wanted (or even knew how) to truly defend their turf, here is what they would do. They would throw away Vista and develop a new operating system, one that is simpler, lighter, and more secure -- an OS that would run on any machine now running Windows 2000 or XP. They would price it right, which is to say cheap ($49.95). The associated and trimmed-down version of Office would be priced the same ($49.95). The upgrade market is probably five times bigger than the OEM PC market, so Microsoft needs (but probably doesn't realize it) an OS that will run well on most of the PC installed base. It needs to set the pricing of the OS so that we'll run to the store to get it. Instead of designing products exclusively for new equipment, now it's time for Microsoft to focus on the installed base.

Remember, $49.95 is more than Microsoft gets for an OEM Windows license, and OEM sales will continue simply because computers die and need to be replaced. Microsoft COULD win both ways, but probably won't risk it."

He’s right on the money… All I am saying is that with all the "innovation" we're promised no real decent ideas make it from our champions of technology. It's not JUST M$oft, but they are a good(the best next to IBM?) example. It must be nice to have some money on the bank to shield you from poor planning, products, etc.

The reason why I said Apple was dropping the ball is that now we can use Windows on the Mac, now we can own a Mac and use our PC by soft booting into Windows. How long do you think it would take for us to just skip using out Windows apps? Not long I bet... How about Google being platform agnostic, soon all we will need is a web browser to do many thing (ajax anyone?)...