SuperBowl XLI Review

Did you watch the game? We did. I thought it was entertaining but was surprised at all the fumbles.

The commercials were rather disappointing, I mean some yucks but nothing as funny as Office Linebacker from a few years ago. Enjoy the link!

Thursday, Feb 8 at 2:50 PM #

Been awhile...

Been awhile since I blogged, so here are a couple links fresh on my mind:

Anyone but a Bush or a Clinton

Children of Men

Good stuff both, check 'em out!

Monday, Jan 22 at 9:52 PM #

Big news in Second Life

Wow I sat down expecting to blog about last Friday's episode of Rocketboom and the idea that there's a virtual congress... and found this announcement that Second Life is now open source!

I've played some in Second Life and it seems weak to me. Many years ago I spent a lot of time in another virutal world and ultimately did have fun but had to question why I was doing it... especially when Dr. Bart panned it on performance.

Second Life is slow as dirt here but with this announcement maybe somebody will be able to fix it!

Monday, Jan 8 at 1:00 PM #

Interesting numbers

Wow look at me blogging like crazy this year :)

I just saw this in a note from the big corporate cheese where I work, and while I didn't get permission to quote it I think it'll be OK. Sure seems interesting statistics to me:

"We know that 10 percent of our patients incur 80 percent of our costs. We also know that 70 percent of our costs come from people with five chronic conditions (these include diabetes, asthma, congestive heart failure, coronary artery disease and depression)."

Wow. I guess the biggest (secondary) surprise here for me is asthma, who knew. He goes on to say, "Each of those five conditions lends itself wonderfully to effective and timely interventions" so that's good!

Wednesday, Jan 3 at 4:51 PM #

An Open Source Story

I really enjoyed reading this story about Google switching from the open-source database MySQL to some "real" commercial solution. Had to stop and blog this statement regarding the choice of spending money on proprietary offerings versus commercial:

"...they might as well be flushing that money down the toilet. Actually, they might be better off."

Ha ha. Most days I'm really happy with OS X and for me it's the exception that proves the rule. To the topic at hand, I'm using MySQL and really don't miss the features it doesn't have. But then I haven't worked on Homepage Toolbox in a long time; I do recall there was plenty that just couldn't be done a few years ago with it.

But that's another story!

Tuesday, Jan 2 at 7:28 PM #

Nothing Changes

"Nothing changes on New Year's Day"... true enough, but OTOH it's a fine time to think about recommitting to goals and like that. I've seen a few friend's weblogs where they say they want to lose some weight in 2007 and I'm no exception. Also there are many little projects I didn't get done last year and want to belt out before too long...

Like, I updated most everything related to publishing my podcast... so that's good. Happy New Year everybody!

Tuesday, Jan 2 at 1:34 PM #

Another fun one...

All depends on what you like, I found Roboclaw challenging and amusing. In other news, I need to re-read the email but I think Neal told me he crushed my score in the states game, go Neal!

Saturday, Dec 23 at 6:50 PM #

Geography and stuff

Gotta love it when a good plan comes together! As much as anything, I registered Lux in order to play a lot of the Election Day map... a game of Risk using the map of the US broken down into voting districts. Good fun and I apparently learned something:

Try this game, a simple challenge to place the 50 states on the map. The comment says "try this only if you want to feel stupid" and I'm sure that would have been the case for me awhile ago... but not anymore! I scored 80% with an average error of 68 miles and 40 out of 50 perfect. Can you beat that?

I haven't blogged much lately... haven't been doing much computing at all these last few weeks, but I'm pretty much healed up and back in business. Merry Christmas!

Friday, Dec 22 at 7:46 AM #

Wii failed...

Kris laughed at me when she heard I was gunning for the hot toy of the holiday, and I really don't have any comeback. Like this fellow I was thinking I'd be cool and yet I failed. Evelyn and I rolled out early, to leave by 6:00AM for an hour drive to Salem to get a console. There were about 20 ahead of us when we got there at 7:00. Shortly after we arrived they came out and said they had 10 consoles. Close but no cigar.

I talked to the guy first in line today, he was well prepared to camp out and wait and got to the store at 4:15 with his ski jacket, a chair, a blanket, and a DVD player. Good for him. I hung out at the local Fred Meyer yesterday to see what was on the truck; they got 2.

This is nutty and I'm officially swearing off. The game won't be any less fun when it's warm out and easily acquired. But now Evelyn has the bug so we'll see!

Sunday, Dec 17 at 8:18 AM #

Tartar Sauce

I nearly lost track of this recipe, from a dude named Jim. Good tartar sauce!

1 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup relish (Jim likes dill, we like sweet)

1 tsp Balsamic vinegar

1 tbls yellow mustard

1/2 tsp lemon or lime juice

Mix together. Salt and pepper to taste. Perhaps a little better given some time to let the ingredients come together... but really quite yummy even prepared when needed.

Saturday, Dec 16 at 6:25 PM #

Hernia Repair

I haven't blogged here about this, but did mention it in my podcast... over the summer I gave myself a small hernia! The info sheet they give you says this will just happen to some people and not to worry about exercise, but mine was in my stomach wall and likely a result of not doing enough situps. Oh well, it happened and I lived with it for a few months, and yesterday went in for the surgery to get it repaired.

It was a tiny spot about an inch above my belly button. The doctor said there was a little bit of fat in the opening which explains why it was uncomfortable though very small. The surgery went really well and now I'm home relaxing and healing up. Good doctor and good meds, I haven't hit even a 4 on the pain scale and will just take it easy and be all better pretty quickly.

I'm blessed with great insurance and a generous extended sick leave plan... really, for a health issue that requires surgery this hasn't been very bad at all. It was certainly put in perspective for me when I got to the hospital, there was a woman in the next bed over who was in for a biopsy on her breast to find out if she had cancer. Me, just a small procedure for a little discomfort. And a nice long break from work to boot!

Today I need to find a good place and position to work from my laptop, as sitting isn't too bad but I can't do it for very long before I'm ready to lie back down. And I think I'll stay on a tight schedule for the Vicodin... yesterday evening I was doing the classic thing of waiting until I needed a dose to take one, which doesn't work as well.

God is good, the worst I'm experiencing from all this is boredom!

Tuesday, Dec 12 at 5:07 AM #

Worst bus ride home ever

"That was the worst bus ride home ever. I was on that team."

The clip is here, the Digg conversation is here. Good grins.

Monday, Nov 27 at 8:45 AM #

Schoolhouse Rock for the New Millennium

I'm sooo ready to get perpendicular! I should explain the link, this is a hilarious video from Hitachi explaining new hard drive technology. Exciting!

Monday, Nov 20 at 4:23 PM #

This blog is making me hungry!

Portland Monthly ran a list of the "15 Restaurants Changing What We Eat" on a cover titled "Best Restaurants" and I took some time looking through it, because I like to eat. I made notes on places I might actually go (not up for the $50 a plate experience).

Apizza Scholls and Wong's King Seafood were the only ones on the list that looked do-able... but they also had an insert on street vendors that had some interesting sounding places, for spring: Moxie RX, Tábor and Taqueria Lindo Michoacán all appear worth investigating further.

The boss says 5th and Stark (where Tábor is at) is cool... so here's a blog note to go there when it warms up again. Hopefully I'll have lost all my weight by then. Speaking of, I only need to drop .2 pounds more to hit the FORTY POUND milestone since I started in April. I've still got another 31.6 to lose, but am feeling good!

Thursday, Nov 16 at 3:18 PM #

Egypt in Portland

Monica rarely reads this so I can make a note here and still surprise her, I bet :)

I think she'd enjoy a trip to Portland to see Treasures from Ancient Egypt. Looks good!

Wednesday, Nov 8 at 10:50 AM #

War on Spam: weary

This article concludes:

Some time ago I asked in a column, rhetorically, whether people would put up with spam as it approached 100 percent of the corpus of e-mail. According to Postini we're at 91 percent and rising, and I have to ask again: How bad does it have to get? The truth is that it can get a lot worse than it is now before enough people contemplate really serious measures.

I did get Spam Assassin running and need to go update it with the current version. Far too much is getting through and it's not a happy situation. But, to the point of blogging... the only "really serious measures" I can think of are unpalatable, so he's right!

Tuesday, Nov 7 at 4:00 PM #

Halloween is tomorrow

I just saw this and it freaked me out... be sure to read the text before you watch the video so it makes sense:

Ghostly Car Ad... Do you believe in ghosts???

This one is really wild, but make sure you read the info below before you view the video and turn up the volume if you can. This is a car advertisement from Great Britain. When they finished filming the ad, the film editor noticed something moving along the side of the car, like a ghostly white mist. They found out that a person had been killed a year earlier in that exact same spot. The ad was never put on TV because of the unexplained ghostly phenomenon.

Watch the front end of the car closely as it clears the trees in the middle of the screen and you'll see the white mist crossing in front of the car then following it along the road....Spooky!

Is it a ghost, or is it simply mist? You decide. If you listen to the ad, you'll even hear the cameraman whispering in the background about it near the end of the commercial. A little creepy but it seems to be authentic!

Monday, Oct 30 at 10:40 AM #

Assignment: Multimedia

Marty says I need to be spending time at Adobe and Creative Cow. When somebody like Marty tells me that I need to do something, I try to listen. The timing is good as Leisa and I were just talking about finding a way to afford the suite.

[darn, forgot to click Post yesterday]

Saturday, Oct 28 at 4:17 AM #

Weight loss update-back on plan

Well I stopped paying attention for awhile but I'm back on plan and want to lose the rest of my weight. You can see from the attached that I haven't gained back all I lost, no no quite the contrary! I've maintained the loss and in fact dropped a little more over the last couple months.

Now I want to lose the rest of it. I bought new pants yesterday and Monica's so pleased with the new look. Me too!

Tuesday, Oct 24 at 5:04 PM #

Another one bites the dust

Lik-Sang has been driven out of business! Bummer, I was hoping they'd get me a Wii before it hit the store shelves. Now I need a new plan.

I have NO time for games, yet am really looking forward to November 19.