Ok, so most of you are probably wondering, "What the hell is Ben doing with a freakin' blog site? Weren't his spews enough to turn us off on his writing forever???" And you'd be quite justified in your disbelief and annoyance. But this is how I rationalized it to myself....
Yes I am. So recently I decided to poke around on the Dr. Scholl's site to take a look at their Massaging Gel Insoles since I keep seeing their damn commercials for it on TV. Normally I don't pay much attention to commercials but the ones for this product stuck for some reason...
Hmm.... I wonder if this increase in productivity is actually for real. I mean how many people do you know that are actually working LESS hours than before? Besides those laid off or forced to take "mandatory vacations." I think people are actually working more hours to compensate for all their laid off peers but the companies don't need to report it cause they're not actually paying for those hours. Or maybe it's in manufacturing. Cause services hours sure aren't going down.
Two words, RIAA. BLOW ME.
Apple finally released their aluminum 15" Powerbook G4. Sure it's no G5 but it's still pretty darn cool. Now the question is, do I upgrade my first edition G4 to this baby or to one of them IBM T40s? Or is there a way to get both? Hmmm...........
Spurred on by Frank Miller's quite impressive, but short, comic collection 300 about the Spartan defense at Thermopylae, I also picked up Steven Pressfield's novel, Gates of Fire based on the same event. Excellent, excellent reads. Sure they're both dramatizations and the details are somewhat fictional but they provide a fascinating view of what Spartan life and hoplite warfare might have been like way back when. And provides a good example of a strong and respected leader figure who leads by example that unfortunately, is sorely lacking in this day and age.
Everything seems to be affordable when you break it down into days. $3000 over 2 years? That's only $4 a day! Surely I can afford that. So I don't eat breakfast for 2 years, not a problem. Ai yai yai.....
Was just wondering... why don't we ever see any news articles on the good things that the Americans might be doing in Iraq? I don't know what good things we could possibly be doing which is why I'd like to read about them. I mean there's gotta be something right? All you see in the news these days about Iraq is mostly more troops being wounded or killed, some old guard Iraqi surrendering or being captured, or some minor bullshit about a new Iraqi government being voted on or formed in like 500 years. Iraq is a relatively large country. Is it possible that EVERYONE there hates us? Or am I just not looking hard enough? Probably have to go troll some Republican sites or something.
It's a sorry state of affairs we live in when things like this are allowed to happen. I mean c'mon, this is even lamer than the "Well he MADE me do it" excuse that we're supposed to outgrow. People need to start learning what accountability means.
It's too bad I don't live in Cali. Well, ok... maybe not. But if I did live in Cali, I'd probably vote for Georgy.
Just another scientific study that I guess really doesn't tell us what we couldn't already figure out just by observing our school life. Y'know, the whole jocks vs. geeks thing. But it brought back memories of eviscerating the poor fruit flies back at the U of C just to find their gonads.
Then apparently there was a minor fuss a few months back when James Watson of Watson & Crick fame commented that stupidity was a disease which scientists should cure. Although I guess that would be insulting to those already stupid, I don't really see the ethical dilemma behind curing stupidity. It's never going to be possible but I wouldn't have a problem with it if it was.
Received an email from Apple today saying that my Powerbook was delayed for a week. Punks. At least they've sent out the iPod already so there'll be something for me to play with while I wait. Received the Airport Extreme base station today and just set it up so now I have 2 wireless networks emanating from our apartment.
Ouch. Talk about a double loser.
The current Republican administration is either insidiously evil, diabolical geniuses, or the luckiest bastards in the world. Or all of the above. They were basically able to blatantly lie about their causes for war, leaving just enough of a loophole to squirm out of when none of what they were saying turned out to be true, and then retract them without the American public making a fuss. That's fuckin' ingenious. One thing's for sure, the Fox News Network has got to be taken off the air. Just replace 'em with a 24-hour The Simpsons channel and everybody'll be happy.
when you have to reinstall your Windows OS. Installed a new 200GB drive on my PC desktop this morning and figured I'd take the time to merge 2 partitions on my old drive since I no longer needed them to be separate. Bad idea...
Congrats to the Cubs for winning their first playoff series in uh.... 95 years??? Yowza. Here's hoping the Bosox loses tonight . =)
You would think they would've changed their town names by now.
Apparently my new Powerbook is "out for delivery." I knew I should've taken today off for Yom Kippur. ;-p
Wrote up an epinions review on my iPod. Check it out!
Yay! It's here! Some quick pics of my new Powerbook. Partytime! ;-)
Caught Geraldo Rivera on the Jay Leno show two nights ago and was surprised at how ... "normal" he seemed. Nothing like the rabid egotistical schmuck I was led to believe he was throughout the years. Seemed to have some pretty normal moderate views that was rather sensible. Worth another look I suppose.
If anyone's in the market for a Palm Tungsten T, lemme know. ;-)
You would think that evidence for these types of accusations would be pretty easy to see.
Apparently while everyone was watching Kill Bill: Volume 1 this weekend I remained oblivious and instead started my weekend intensive program in kyudo at the Toko Kyudojo in the city. Kyudo, the Way of the Bow, aka Zen archery, is a form of moving meditation where marksmanship is secondary. Prospective beginners need to take the First Shot Program which teaches you the seven coordinations, the basic form of aligning the body and properly drawing and releasing the arrow. One of those things that is relatively easy to pick up but mucho difficult to master.
Anyway, it's quite interesting and I went to the first class this evening. Figure it's worth pursuing since it's not everyday you get to attempt to look graceful with a 7 foot long bamboo bow.
Daaaaaaaa..... YANKEES WIN!!!!!!! Da Yankees WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Good god that was an insane game.
Well, finally went to catch a matinee showing of Kill Bill - Volume 1 early Sunday afternoon and I dunno, I thought it was just an ok movie. For some reason I felt a need to nitpick which was kinda weird since I don't normally look for this kinda stuff when I watch a movie. But if you haven't seen this movie yet, then you probably don't want to read on...
Check out my new reviews on the Palm Tungsten T3 and Powerbook G4!
And just in case you Windows users out there haven't heard yet, Apple has released iTunes for PC and it works exactly the same as the Mac version, including access to the Apple Music Store and the ability to easily share your library with other computers running iTunes on the same network. A couple of us have it installed here at work and it works super. And it's FREE.
The primary HD on my PC desktop is on the verge of dying hence the downtime for this site the day before and yesterday. Good thing I bought that 200GB drive last week and even better thing that this dying drive is still under warranty so I should be getting a replacement in a few weeks.
I also just noticed that this site doesn't look quite right under IE for PC. And that's the only browser that displays it improperly (right column is below the left), works fine on Firebird for PC, IE for Mac, Camino for Mac so if you're viewing this on IE for PC, get a REAL browser!
MacOS X 10.3 Panther is released today!
DAMN this is one tough dude.
Next thing you know they'll want to become an Olympic sport.
Although it does remind me of Roshambo Rampage!!!!
I never seem to have an umbrella handy. And vice versa. But anyways, this last month has been rough on my hardware. This morning my home SMC router bit the big one and I had to spend over an hour with tech support running through their various ways of rebooting the router until they finally decided that I could get a replacement. At least I won't have to pay for a new router. Then again the replacement they need to send me is backordered. Guess I should call them again tomorrow to see if they can send me a newer version of the router. =p But that's why this site was down once again today. Hope things'll smooth themselves out in a few weeks. Eesh.
Been engrossed in Court TV's Crime Library site lately. Ruminating through the serial killers category. Some stunningly sick stuff there.
Very, very cool. Although I wonder how long it takes for communications to travel back and forth between it and the Earth.
That's it I'm packing up and moving to Cali.
My replacement HD has finally arrived and I spent most of this evening setting it up so at least my development stuff and this site was back up and running. Still got a ton of stuff to reinstall though so pardon me if the server goes up and down for the next few days during the evenings. Anyway, after this latest stint the server should hopefully be pretty stable going forward.
Interesting note in the recent issue of Maximum PC this month where apparently Sanyo is developing a biodegradable CD made of corn. Takes 85 kernels to make one 12cm CD which will break down into water and CO2 in 50 to 100 years. Not exactly sure why it takes that long but at least it does break down. And I guess you wouldn't want it breaking down too quickly since people use 'em for data backup and such. But I wonder if they'll be as sturdy as the current CDs or will regular use on those 52x drives make them shatter like corn chips.
God I hate the Republicans. They're pretty good at self-righteousness when they're also the biggest hypocrites around. I find it highly amusing that they're trying to convince the Dems to not vote vindictively when they damn well know that they'll be doing the same thing the next time a Dem prez hits the White House. And that email about getting good face time on Fox? Like that's a surprise.
Phone number portability is coming soon. The cell phone companies finally gave up on trying to delay it. Good article on how it'll work.
Bought a Traveler's Coolpad many years ago when they first came out and liked it so much that I bought one of the Podium Coolpad's as well when they were introduced later. Despite being sold almost everywhere these days, they seem to have remained a relatively small operation (not surprising since these things are basically just pieces of rubber and plastic after all). Last week I had emailed them to ask if it was possible to get replacement rubber feet since a few of 'em had fell off my Traveler. To my surprise they just said to email them my address and to top it off, they'd just mail me a completely new pad. So I received the new pad today and to my surprise (again), they had also included a sheet of the rubber feet. Now that's service. I haven't been this impressed since the fine folks at Barebones Software emailed me months after an initial query to inform me that the new version of BBEdit now supported Chinese and other 2-byte characters. So if any of you have a laptop, I'd seriously recommend picking up one of these Coolpads. I was sold by the swivel functionality alone.
The Port Authority completed the World Trade Center PATH station ahead of schedule and it opened today so we decided to go scout around since it makes our daily commute easier than before. For Erin she can now walk 5 or 6 short blocks to school from the station and I can walk a block over to hop onto the 4/5/6 uptown. What I wasn't expecting...
Darwin Awards anyone? Actually I've always wondered about this cause I know there are still some societies out there where people will fire weapons into the air during weddings and such. Those bullets don't just keep going into space.
Decided to catch up on some movie watching over the extended weekend. First off was Ran. Superb film although the liberal use of red paint during the battle scenes at times was a bit laughable. And Lady Kaede earns the "Psycho Bitch from Hell" award for the year. But great stuff overall.
Next, there was Frailty which turned out to be quite good. Wasn't really a scary movie, just a creepy suspense movie. It kinda follows along the lines of The Others and The Sixth Sense where you have a big twist near the end but it's a pretty good twist and is a pretty good movie in general. Surprised I hadn't heard much about it when it was first released.
And finally there's Ping Pong, a relatively recent Japanese flick that I thought was super, especially considering it was about ping pong for cryin' out loud. Didn't recognize any of the actors in it 'cept for the one who played the coach since he played the hilarious samba/mambo guy in Shall We Dance. It had some pretty corny and odd moments in it but had a pretty good soundtrack and was quite entertaining overall.
Go drink yerself silly. ;-p
Picked a bad weekend to have to go in for a little overtime. Commute wasn't too bad actually, the worst of it was the 10 minute trek to the PATH station from my apt where I had to brave strong winds either blowing across vast open parking lots or funneling into stronger winds between office buildings. Urgh.
Was brought to my attention recently that if you do a search on Google for "miserable failure", the first site that's listed is the official biography page of Dubya on whitehouse.gov. Wonder how that happened... ;-p
Decided to finally finish tinkering with the graphic options for Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic so that it would run the best graphics possible without slowing down gameplay too much. Bad move. These RPG games by Bioware are just addictive as all hell. And it doesn't help that they did such a great job with this game. Melee battles with lightsabers are a sight to behold and listen to. You get the whole laser deflecting and saber humming and all that fun stuff. And the flirty lines you get to use with the main female NPC can be pretty amusing. Reminds me a lot of Bioware's older game, Neverwinter Nights though cause some of the story and missions seem to be a bit rehashed from that. But it's still a lotta fun.
for posterity's sake. Saddam was captured on Sunday, Dec. 14. Yay.
Good to see I'm not the only one who hates Hummers.
Took the day off from work yesterday to attend the Lord of the Rings uber-fest. Watched the first 2 extended DVD versions on the big screen followed by the last installment, The Return of the King. Fe put up some random pics. Quite an experience. Was basically at the theater from 9:30am to 1:30am. There was about an one and a half hour intermission between each movie with the first one clocking in at over 3 hours, the second one at 4 hours and the third one holding its own at 3 hours, 20 minutes. And that's not even an extended version. Definitely an epic series befitting of the books.
Well that was quick. Less than a month after I purchased my 200GB Maxtor HD, it's already dying. At least getting replacements while you're still under warranty is relatively easy. But still, this is getting ridiculous. Hopefully things'll stop breaking on me when I move everything to the larger (full tower) case that I just ordered.
Not really hectic in that much was accomplished. More that it took us forever to get anywhere that we wanted to since everybody was out and about doing last minute Christmas shopping and the like. Did wind up getting up at 8 today to be able to get to the Short Hills Mall at 9:30 so that we'd be able to a decent parking spot. =p Even though the mall officially opened at 10, some of the department stores were already open. Anyway, the crowd throughout wasn't overly bad. Besides the half an hour wait at Tiffany's, everything else went rather smoothly. Warmed the heart to see long lines at the Apple Store even though I didn't buy anything. ;-p
New twist to a recent trend. What state of mind do you have to be in to actually willingly inflict this on yourself?
And I thought having my birthday so close to Thanksgiving was bad. ;-) Have fun in SC!
Hope everyone had a great Christmas and have a Happy New Year! Got some good loot that should keep me occupied for awhile. Got a bunch of work left to be done but at least I have this coming week off as vacation. =)
Transferred the guts of my home desktop into its new case earlier this week and so far so good. Also had received the replacement drive for my 1 month old 200GB drive and popped that in as well. Was pleased to see that they had sent me a 250GB drive instead. And so far everything seems to be working quite well. Much easier to install hardware into this new case and it came with 6 fans (3 of which are glowing green neon) as opposed to the 2 that I had in the old case. But surprisingly even though the fans aren't temperature regulated, the overall noise level isn't much more noticeable than before. Anyway, hopefully this'll be the last time in awhile that I have to delve into the bowels of this machine because something broke.
First, as I had reported below about the man who castrated himself after an argument with his wife. Now, another man apparently decided that death was preferable than having to deal with his wife.
'k, so I'm a day late. =p Anyone make any juicy or actually viable New Year's resolutions? ;-)
Dreary ass day today so what better way to liven up the day than to visit the local Museum of Sex. Nifty website by the way. But anyway, 'twas an interesting and educational trip although I think the admission fee was a bit high ($14.50 + tax) for just 2 floors of stuff.
