FlyGuy is incredibly amusing. (via Boing Boing)
The NFL is complaining that Midway’s NFL Blitz doesn’t accurately reflect what happens on the field with late hits and violence. This is crap. It’s a video game, I’m not certain if people in the league office are familiar with video games, but they often do not mirror “reality” very well. Umm, it’s sort of the point y’all.
My summary version of 2002:
- Still Laid off, doing small projects. Boring.
- Lots of sitting around the house. Boring.
- I go to SXSW. Fun.
- I go to Las Vegas. Fun.
- I go to California. Fun.
- Working again full time as an independent consultant. Rewarding.
- We settle with our former employer. Finally.
- I go to Maine and Nova Scotia. Great Fun.
- I loved her for eight years, she breaks my heart in an instant. Not so much fun.
- I attempt to recover. Eeesh.
- I go to Connecticut for Thanksgiving. Fun.
- I continue to attempt to recover. Aaargh.
- I return to Connecticut and New York for Christmas. Fun.
- I am tired of the recovery process and decide that I have to move on. Hooray!
Top Five Things I bought this year.
FlyGuy is incredibly amusing. (via Boing Boing)
So I’m back in Atlanta after my whirlwind tour of the Northeast, back at work and trying to figure out where exactly I left off before Christmas, which is proving to be a more difficult task than I would have thought. I return from the holiday personally energized in a way that I was not energized prior to the holiday. The one thing that I can say with some level of certainty is that family is perhaps the most vital thing in a person’s life. This Christmas, we severely limited the gift giving. I actually liked it much better than I would have thought. It put the emphasis on what the holidays are really about for me, catching up with the family, and getting to spend time with them. My brothers and parents are great people, and by being a part of the family, it makes me feel like a great person too. It centers me in a way that no interaction with non-family members can. It really makes me look forward to having a family of my own some day. Not that I’m in any rush on that front mind you.
I’m in New York City, enjoying my brothers' company before departing for Atlanta in the morning. We went into a Tower Records downtown, and I didn’t buy a thing. Compact Discs have gotten way too expensive if you ask me. Case in point, I looked at the Goldmember Soundtrack because we’ve been laughing and enjoying the song that Dr. Evil performs in the movie. The soundtrack cost $18.99. The movie, on DVD, was priced at $19.99. How the hell can the soundtrack cost only one dollar less than the entire movie? It’s just ridiculous.
White Christmas here in the North East. It feels great, I just went out and wandered around in the still falling snow, took some pictures, and enjoyed the feeling of the flakes hitting my face. What a wonderful Christmas, I’m glad we didn’t have to leave the safe haven of my parent’s house, driving doesn’t look too pretty here in Connecticut. It’s not too deep, but it’s great snowball snow.
Spherical PC from Japan. Over time, more and more of these non-traditional PC shapes are appearing. Even more interesting, however, are all of the non-PC devices that are Internet connected now. My Danger has really impressed upon me that the always connected device is where things are going, and that there will soon be more devices like this connected to the Internet than PC’s. (link via Gizmodo)
Merry Christmas.
The Register: Microsoft plots Macromedia coup against Java One of the strengths of Macromedia’s toolset is its crossplatform nature. Especially with the increased focus on server side Java. It would be a shame to see this company gobbled up by someone who would end this strength.
I’m home in Connecticut for the holidays with my family. In the past, this has meant either a return to dialup access or using my parents oldish PC for my computing needs. However, my brother and I discovered that someone in our parent’s neighborhood has a WiFi network that we can connect to. I intend to use some stumbling software to figure out exactly who it is and let them know that people can hop on to make sure they have no problem with it, but it’s nice to be able to do the things I normally do online from the comfort of my parents' living room.
I know I posted a link to 5inch a while ago, but they have some really cool newish designs that I hadn’t seen until today. I wish that I had seen this one a month ago, it would have made for some really cool mixed cd gifts for friends.
Apple has released Mac OS X 10.2.3 via Software Update.
I need to switch to a different email application on my Mac OS X boxes. I used to use MSFT’s Entourage, but I switched over to Mail, which Apple ships with Mac OS X. I’m not happy with either at this point. I want something slimmer and more responsive. There’s a list of some other options over at Mac Net Journal, the problem is that I am so email intensive that it is quite an investment in time for me to test out new mail applications. I guess I will try the most recent version of Entourage since it has been updated. The things that I need most in an email client are:
- Support for multiple accounts.
- Strong filtering capabilities.
- Some kind of Spam filtering.
- Responsive Interface and mail browsing.
- Stability, good conformance with Mac OS X User Interface Conventions.
The WThRemix site is up. This is a contest that challenges entrants to redesign the W3C homepage so that it looks and works better while maintaining its standards based approach to design. I’ll be one of the fine judges for the contest, and I am currently seeking companies that would be willing to donate appropriate prizes. So go over there, read about it, and get involved.
I’m beginning to prepare myself to try and quit smoking again. I seem to have the best success in the first couple of months when I give myself some ramp up time, start working out every day without fail, and mentally prepare myself. I seem to have the worst success when alcohol is introduced into my bloodstream, which means I am bound to be the designated driver for a while. I’m thinking that January would be a good month to start. Not the cliche January first start because that actually might be too soon. I will be using the patch sans Zyban this time. It’s never the quitting process that fails, it’s the life as a quit addict that follows that I seem to have a hard time with. Well, we’ll see, won’t we.
My work on a top ten cd’s of the year list continues. I’m very glad for the fact that I can listen to everything easily. At least one CD that I didn’t really listen to that much has crept up in the rankings greatly as a result of the chance to listen to it again. My “off the top of my head list” would have been very different than the one I am going to end up with at the end of the year.
Recently seen on the bathroom wall of a Mexican lunch spot we hit weekly: “Broken Hearts are for Assholes."
I’ve had a wireless network in my house for a little over two years now, I bought one of the original Airport base stations when they were released. I’ve gotten very used to being able to compute from the living room, the bedroom, the kitchen and, of course, my office at home. For some reason, I rarely roam outside there areas, or leave the house to compute. This morning, I’ve been hanging out in a Starbucks near my house, using some of the minutes that I bought when I went to SXSW earlier this year. I don’t know why, but I seem to enjoy this more than my normal wireless at home. I like being around people, hanging out, drinking coffee and reading. This is bad in a way because this costs money based on how long I use it, and my access at home does not.
I’ve been making the transition to single life very slowly. It’s not easy getting over being in love with someone. At times, I feel like someone who has lost an arm or a leg must feel, there is something missing that is supposed to be there. As time goes by, and the reality that this is what it is sets in, I’m beginning to think about women in a way I haven’t thought them in eight years. Let me tell you secret about men, we fall in love way too easily. Now, I know what you are saying to yourself, that based on what you have seen, that is not true at all, that men don’t behave in a manner that would indicate that this is true at all. I would disagree completely. Men fall in love way too easily, and this makes our lives all that much more confusing than they should be.
I was thinking this morning that I want to make some top ten lists at the end of the year. In past years, when I wanted to make a top ten list of records, I would have to dig a bit. What came out this year? This year, I fired up iTunes, created a new smart playlist that filtered out anything that was not released this year. So for the next week, I can listen to nothing but the music I bought that came out this year. Imagine that, and the CD’s will sit in their drawer where they belong. I love technology.
Damn The Screen Savers, I want one of these for my next Linux machine.
Apple is now offering a Beck special edition iPod with Beck’s logo engraved on the back. Not sure why I would care to have his logo engraved on my iPod, but I guess someone must or they wouldn’t be doing the whole thing.