Dance, Dance!

I danced with a chicken in the rain
And it was good.
I danced with a chicken in the rain
And it was poultry in motion.

:)

Not Flying

I'm glad we're not flying this weekend!

"Headaches Greet Early Holiday Travelers Nancy Cross and her family wait in line to go through security before flying to Orlando, Fla., from Dulles International Airport on Thursday, May 26, 2005 in Chantilly, Va. The Memorial Day rush at Dulles International Airport began early Thursday afternoon as security lines suddenly ballooned to thousands of travelers. "

Memorial Day

Since I don't work Fridays this summer, my Memorial Day holiday started about 2 1/2 hours ago. Yeah! Here's the word from the boys in blue for the weekend:


Don't they all just look ready to open up a can o' Whoop Ass on you if you aren't wearing your seatbelt?

We're going to be safe. I hope everyone else is too.

Seti @ Home

I just passed 5000 work units for SETI! Yahoo!!!



51,533 hours is 2147.20833 days straight of crunching data. When I first started running this process Sat May 22 1999, it took 40 hours to complete one unit. Now, with better computers, I can do a unit in about 5 hours. I run it constantly on two machines and crunch as much as I can.

My rank out of 5,427,057 total users is: 66,842nd place. (Not exactly a blue ribbon...)
The number of users who have this rank: 42
I have completed more work units than 98.768% of SAH users.
I've been a user for 6.016 years, they tell me.

How exciting! I love SETI!

Leave it to J-walk

Leave it to J-walk to find some intersting music to listen to. Some of it is good. :)
http://www.ampcast.com

Watch this

Click her for a video. Free sound included!Turn your speakers up.

Characters

Here are some neat Japanese or Chinese (I'm not sure which) characters I got in a junk email last week. Wonder what they say? Probably "Buy something, stupid American!"

Note to self

Harrumph! Well, here's what I was trying to do. Blogger's well-meaning HTML rewriting screws it up if I put it in a post. I had intended to use it periodically, but I guess I'd have to make it a graphic if I did. The cool thing about it is that it's all simple HTML. Borrowed it from here. Go Claudia!

Christian Loooove

I kept seeing this ad over the weekend. I really am not sure that the two in the picture really represent the "look" that would attract your good christian looking for love. The girl looks like a goth out of her makeup or a bad girl off Charmed or Buffy and the guy looks like an 80s rock band member. Actually, looking at their expressions, I think they want to draw unsuspecting lonely chistians into sex, drugs, and rock n roll. Oh wait, but at least 1/3 of that is what people who are clicking on this ad want anyway, right? [smirk]

Bren Loves Flowers

While mama and I were cleaning house, Bren was playing on a really cool little toddler app called Keyboard Pounder. It does what you'd think: kid hits any (and I mean any) button the keyboard, neat flowers/butterflies or swimming fishies come up. He gets a kick out of it. Here's his latest keyboard pounder masterpiece -


"Bren Loves Flowers"

E3 - Electronic Entertainment Expo

Wish I was a game journalist like Cat so that I could've gone...

I was just reading some of Gamespot's coverage and here are the game I'm intersted in:

Halo 3, of course
Another Link

Civ 4

StarCraft: Ghost Another Link


Aeon Flux

Age of Empires III

Dungeon Seige 2

Dynasty Warriors 5

Final Fantasy 12

Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows

Romancing SaGa

Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 2

The Matrix: Path of Neo

The Movies

X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse

That's a lot of games, it should be a fun next couple of years... 8-]

The Splendid Table

I'm listening to The Splendid Table on my NPR station, KSTX. I really enjoy this show because of the sooooooo interesting food things that they talk about. This week there were two particularly interesting to me things. T.R.Reid on eating in Japan (05:40) and Ruth Reichl on Levine's Brooklyn (05:58). Both links should bring up clips, assuming they're still there. I would really like to get Ruth Reichl's book, or even better, the audio version! Audible.com has an unabridged version, but those buggers won't let me do a proper link to the info on it.

I shan't stand for abridgment, even if it is a cheaper download. Ha!

I just decided that I need/want to make all my links open in new windows without having to use target=_new each time I insert a link. In my quest to find a way to do that, or have it done automatically rather, I found a site that I plan to use in the future: http://www.boogiejack.com/html_tutorials.html I don't know what all he has now, but I'm sure some of it will be useful unfortunately, it did not solve my "problem. Onward...

Ran across an really peculiar site while looking for the code I need: Vintage Girl Watchers. There may be a slight delay in me finding the appropriate code...

Okay, I think I've got it! The links should all open in new windows now without me having to tell them to. That is if the box for it is checked, which it will be by default.

Harrump! I tested it and it worked perfectly, then I decided I didn't want to do that after all. If I include that code, all my comment links and permalinks will open in new windows too and I don't like that. What a waste of time. Oh well, I learned how to do it at least. I got the code from DynamicDrive, a great place for scripts.

In the words of Jewel at RockFest back in June '97, "Damn, guys, it's hot here!" Woo Hoo, we were there!!! It is really hot here today too. About 90 freakin degrees.

Daily Rotation

Here's something I haven't looked at in a long time. It was buried in my favorites list.

http://www.dailyrotation.com/

Blog Surfing

I'm taking a, uh...coffee break, that's it, yeah...a coffee break, but since I hate the taste of coffee (but love the smell) I'm surfing the net. Actually - I'm going to coin a phrase here - I'm blog surfing. I sometimes go out and just look at random blogs. It's fun. Today's: Norse Chick. MSN spaces formats their blog text so that it's really hard to read, at least for me. Or maybe that was her choice. I'm not sure. Either way, the text is hard to read, but the content is interesting.

One of my assistants and I started cleaning my office yesterday. My bookshelf is 3/4 organized and my desk has neat piles. It's scary.

And now for something completely different. Amazon has free music downloads. Hmmmm!

What I'm listening to

Right now I'm enjoying Adiemus: Songs of Sanctuary. I really likeit. I hope the artists won't take this as an insult but it reminds me of the Lion King soundtrack which I like too.

Listen to samples at Amazon's album page.

Tomorrow is my first Friday off on my summer schedule. This is good because it let me schedule a consulting job so I can make a few extra $. I hope that it's a really messed up computer. Hehe. That's bad, but I need the work.

Weird Ebay Auctions

Thanks to J-walk's blog for a link to Weird Ebay Auctions. One for a box of Kleenex supposedly with money inside is interesting. Apparently there's a whole lot of people who bid on mystery items hoping they're worth more than they pay. Pretty smart! http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZsavage822 is one of the sellers.

I must admit, I put the Kleenex box on my watch list...

OK, Update later:

So, the kleenex box auction ended.

Winning bid: US $1,400.00
Ended: May-19-05 10:19:33 PDT
Start time: May-12-05 10:19:33 PDT
History: 75 bids (US $9.99 starting bid)
Winning bidder: highflyinsister (10)

It was interesting, but I'm kind of sad that this person won. Come on, with a 10 feedback, I'd say that the chances of the seller getting paid are less than 50%. I don't mean to dis, but people with low feedback winning super-high dollar auctions is just not something that makes me feel confident of payment. Ehh...whatever.

http://outrageous-ebay.blogspot.com/

Jade

Yahoo! I just hit chapter 3 in Jade Empire. {Gong} Legendary Strike!

Asian Graphix

I just love graphics from Asian websites. They're so interesting sometimes...



Speaking of Asian websites, there's a site that I love from Japan called The Daily Yomiuri. Its the online version of the Yomiuri Shimbun. (Shimbun is Newspaper in Japanese). Since I can't read Japanese :( I have to read the English version. My favorite part is the photography like in Visions of Japan and Lens on Japan. Visions has photos of local trains (of which there are many) and of festivals (of which there are many).

Here's a good picture:


I did the rudimentary animation... ^_^

Today is my first day of summer hours at work. Can you tell? Hehe. I'm working 10 hour days for 4 days with Friday off. So, 3 day (or more) weekends all summer. Yay!!!

Weather

Tonight was rainy and windy. The temperature dropped 15 degrees in 30 min. It was awesome. We loved it. We opened all the windows and turned off the lights. We basked in it. Unusual to bask in a storm, but that's what we did. Basked and celebrated.

Gone and Gone!!!

It's official: They're Gone!

Dance of Joy can now commence!



They even brought back my dolly.

Almost gone

They have loaded all their junk in miraculously under 2 hours. They are taking the truck and all of it except one car which they'll come back for later today. I'm loaning them my dolly temporarily too. Man, if my dolly wasn't in there, I'd have fired this off.



Guess they were lucky...this time. Haha.

Truck arrives

They just returned with the truck - and it's a big one!




"Jumbo"

The Truck!

The roomies just left to pick up their U-Haul. This is getting more real by the minute. :)

T minus 6 hours and counting.

ticktickticktick...

The roomies packed pretty much in silence this evening, ignoring us for some imagined wrong I'm sure. They have most of their junk boxed up now. I told them the living room looked like Brendan had hit it (since it was such a mess.) They didn't laugh. Pricks. T minus about 18 hours and they're out of our lives. I'm waiting somewhat less than patiently.

Jen's Blog-i-versary

Today is Jen's 6 month anniversary of blogging. Kind of neat.

Congrats Jen on 6 months of broadcasting to the world! :)

Tick Tock, Tick Tock...

Somewhere between 24 and 30 hours from now our roomies will have moved out. I am, to slightly undestate the issue, excited. Hasta La Vista, babies. I hope that you have noisy neighbors in your stinky little aparment. Phhhhttttt! :p ~~~

Cutie Pie

Brendan is so cute. he as just sitting in his high chair, and for no apparent reason, called out, "Dad, it's me!". Hehe. What a squirrely kid.

Home again

It was sure nice to get home today!!! 8-]

Booooorrrrrring

Man, I don't want to be at work. I'm so blah today. Wish I could go home early...

Happy Friday the 13th!

Working

I'm just at work right now. It's quiet for once, b/c my co-worker hasn't remembered to turn his loud music on yet. Ahhhhhhhhhhh!

Browsing eBay

I found this funny thing while browsing eBay this weekend.


Lit Cigarette Vending Machine

What the Sh**? A Vending machine that dispenses lit cigarettes??? I thought it was a real for a while until I figured out what the deal was. It's like for a doll house or something. Maybe it's for a Doll Brothel rather. I don't think Barbie would have a cigarette vending machine in the pink mansion. You never can tell though; I bet barbie has some interesting things in her basement...

Bells and Whistles

Been tinkering with some new design gadgets. Fun!!! The neat text and the graphic border below are some of those. I like them!

Harry Potter 6

I CAN NOT WAIT !!!

I saw the cover art for the first time at Toys R Us today. They have a thing where you can put 5 bucks down and get a free T-shirt when you pick it up. I expect it is at full price though, and we are already on the list to get it from Borders at 40% off. I cannot wait until it's here!!!

Can This Black Box See Into the Future?

This is a really amazing story about a bunch of random number generators that seem to "detect" major events as evidenced by deviations in the patterns of numbers that are generated. I plan to follow it for a while and maybe even do some experiments on my own.

http://www.rednova.com/news/display/?id=126649

Very interesting, if a little bit fringe, by today's scientific standards.

Haha! It's funny that I wrote that. I expect people have expressed that exact opinion prior to many of the breakthroughs that we consider commonplace today. That's one of the reasons I keep this blog. I hope that Blogger is still around in 5 or 10 years, so that I can go back and look at my writing and say, "Gee, I was stupid back then." or more preferably, "Gee, I was interested in that before anyone had really heard of it." Hehe.

Here's the link to the actual project web page.

Global Consciousness Project

I wonder if there was a little spike while I was cursing at my cut hand yesterday. [smirk] It still hurts and since I forget not to use it, has been bleeding off and on. Ouch... "Pain is the payment that stupid people receive for not using their brains"

Man, do I feel stupid

I just had an accident. Not a bad one, mind you, but it sure hurts like hell. We have a mandolin slicer which is very sharp and will cut anything. It's almost exactly like this one.


I was using it to slice a sweet potato to make sweet potato chips, which I have learned are very hard to slice thinly... I didn't realize until afterwards that I was using the pusher improperly too. You're supposed to use it as it is shown on the picture, but I was using it rotated 90º. Used properly one's valuable meaty hand tissue is protect from the razor sharp blade. Used like a stupid 29-year computer nerd, there's no hand protection. Suffice it to say that I have a nice painful slice on my right hand at the bottom corner opposite my thumb. It really hurt and hurts. I am just happy that it wasn't worse and that it wasn't an inch further down and toward the center or else I'd have a nasty slash on my wrist. Is there a doctor in the house? I'd settle for a med student... :) Jen actually doctored me up pretty good with Neosporin and a mondo bandage.



Thanks, Jen, for saving my life. Actually, it wasn't thaaaat bad a cut, but it's nice to have someone rush to your rescue. 8-]

Isn't this taking it a little too far?

From an email ad I got today:

We've taken multi-tasking to new heights with Smead® antimicrobial filing products. While you're getting organized, you'll also be fighting the spread of bacteria in your workplace. And, for a limited time, you can be entered to win your very own Palm Pilot® — no purchase necessary.



In unrelated news, happy Cinco de Mayo. 05.05.05. Pretty cool.

Zoo Day

We met my friend Coll and his 4 year-old daughter Bailey at the Zoo today. It was nice to see them and catch up. We had a good time, but Bren was shy, clingy, and wouldn't walk much on his own. He's just scared of strangers. I guess that's good in one respect, but it sure does make for challenging activities with people. I need to post a picture one I get them off the camera.

Added a week later: Pictures!


Princess Bailey


Coll: Not gay, just wearing Bailey's Beads


Bren sees the quack-quacks


Jen makes some new friends


Coll & Bailey


Bren meets Mr Elephant


We had big fun at the Zoo. We rode the mini-train too!