a life less interesting

Child Super powers, part 1 and 2

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 14:04:41 -0500

Abby's secret super power: the ability to stand exactly one inch further away from you at any given time. If you're trying to do her hair, she's one inch too far away. Help her with her dress? Ditto. No matter when you do, no matter how you're trying to help her, she's exactly one inch too far away. Ethan's secret super power: the ability to always, no matter where you, the tv, or he are located, is always directly between you and the tv. If you move, you have about 5 seconds before he shifts to be in a better position to block whatever you're trying to watch. He makes a much better door than a window.

That sucked

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 14:39:43 -0500

So, the problem with the new version of the backend that runs this site? It's that it requires a version of MySQL that I don't have access to. That's all geek to you, hopefully, but the long and the short of it is that an upgrade would need to be done to the server before I can upgrade my software. I don't really think that's going to happen anytime soon. This leaves me flustered, flumoxed, and irritated. But enough about that. I bought a SATA drive a few months ago to go into a USB enclosure. It's super fast, but... not quite fast enough. So then I recently managed to get an external SATA enclosure (two drive) and an SATA Express Card for some super-duper high speed fun (editing a few videos, mostly). I tested it out a couple of times, and it was very nice. Today, for fun, and since I don't use my computer much at work, I decided to see how long it would take to backup the computer via this new highspeed connection. A long time, apparently. RIght now, it's doing about 130mb/min. I started it almost 3 hours ago, and it's done just over 20gb of backup, which is about 6gb/hour. That means that for the other 115gb, it would take about 19 hours. That's not... optimal. Of course, I have Mail, Photoshop, and a slew of other programs all running in the background, so that's not helping things. Regardless, it's not as super-duper fast as I had hoped it would. It is, however, still fast. And faster than the USB connected drive. Now if only I could afford the 3TB of storage that I would probably need for all my data.....

Holidaze

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 13:45:59 -0500

Santa brought Noah a Wii. He's logged more hours on that bad boy than he has in school so far. Boxing day (12/26) he put over 12 hours on it. He's cut back since then, but I think he's addicted to it. And keep in mind, he only plays one game: Lego Star Wars. We had a family "bowling" night the other day - after dinner, we all went downstairs and Jen, Emma, Noah and I played a full set of frames. Noah, with his "spastic child" technique, came in first, followed by me, Jen and then Emma. I'm not sure, but I think I've finally gotten Jen at least partially "into" the Wii - she seemed to have a lot more fun doing that than she did trying to do the "Big Brain Academy" game we played. That was probably not the best first game for her - in addition to the puzzles, she was trying to figure out how to use the controls. Not easy. In other Christmas related news, Santa brought the kids, among other things: Nintendo DS, two American Girl dolls, a tricycle, and lots of other bibs and bobs. Jen got some nice jewelry and a new set of cookware (thanks Aunt Bean!) and I got some nice new shoes and the Simpsons movie. I think everyone had a good time all around. === The above was written on or about Jan. 2, when I had meant to post it. Clearly things got busy - when are they not? Since then some things have changed, but some haven't - Noah logged over 9 hours on the Wii during yesterdays "snow day". The boy was, of course, upset when told to turn it off and spend some time reading.

I'm very pleased with myself

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 09:44:09 -0500

The reason? This image: Sure, I look like my usual super-mega dork. But the beauty of this image is that it will change based on which webcam I used most recently: work or home. This is merely one aspect of the planned upgrades/changes/revitalization of the website. What does it mean to you, dear reader? Nothing. Not an electronic sausage. Now, anyway. But soon!

Maybe it's Brockian Ultra-Cricket....

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 22:31:21 -0500

My children - and you know I really do love them - are insane. Honestly, truly insane. I mean, honestly - how else can you explain the "game" they like to play: hitting each other and then being all apologetic from across the room. Oh wait, Douglas Adams already did: Brockian Ultra-Cricket: described as "a curious game which involved suddenly hitting people for no readily apparent reason and then running away" Of particular interest is rule #5: The players should now lay about themselves for all they are worth with whatever they find on hand. Whenever a player scores a 'hit' on another player, he should immediately run away and apologize from a safe distance. Apologies should be concise, sincere and, for maximum clarity and points, delivered through a megaphone. This morning, when :abby: smacked Noah and then shouted "I'm sorry!" from across the room, it suddenly came to me: it's GOT to be Brockian Ultra-Cricket. Apparently all the times that I read the "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" in high-school have somehow subliminally seeped into the kids brains. I wonder if they know what 6 x 9 really is......

Zork fun for the whole family?

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 09:32:22 -0500

Last night Ethan was cranking, so i picked him up and brought him to the kitchen - as he had been mumbling something about the kitchen. We stepped into the kitchen and i said: You have entered the kitchen. Cabinets abound. There is a sink and several counters. Exits are south, north and west. He pointed at the fridge, so i turned, and said... You are facing the fridge. Other objects available are a stove, sink and microwave. Cabinets still abound, and there are more counters. Exits are north, south and west. He looked at me. I said "Time passes....." He looked at me again. I did a little face sucker action and said "You have been eaten by a grue" He didn't care what his final score was (5 points), but I think he might want to play again tomorrow.....

RIP Mr. Whipple

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:53:07 -0500

LATimes.com brings the following obit: Dick Wilson, a character actor who turned "Please don't squeeze the Charmin" into a national catchphrase as exasperated shopkeeper Mr. Whipple in the TV commercial campaign that ran for more than two decades, has died. He was 91. Remember: Please, don't squeeze the Charmin!

Withdrawal

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 16:54:04 -0500

A quick note to say that I'm now completely off the internet. For a whole weekend. Part of me is really cranky, and another part doesn't care simply because Cablevision no longer gets my money (well, after they finally send us a bill for the correct amount). The problem stems from cancelling the TV service - the phone rep didn't understand me when I said "I also have a cable modem provided by Cablevision under a separate account" and I didn't realize fully what "disconnect you from the cable system" meant. Mostly my bad, but I feel that the phone rep should share at least some of the blame. What happened is that Cablevision feels that since I'm no longer a paying customer, then I shouldn't be on their network at all. You see, you can get basic cable for free if you're still connected - they can't stop the signal without a physical disconnect. The problem is, as I said, that I get my internet from them too. I hadn't fully fleshed out all my options for a replacement for them when it came to the fore on Thursday night - no internet. I called to complain, and Cablevision was nice enough to offer to send someone out between 10 and 7 the next day - provided I would be home in case they needed to come inside the house to check things. Not for nothing, but if the internet stopped when you disconnected me from your wires, why would your tech need to come inside the house? Needless to say, I declined. They said that they could see about getting someone out on Saturday, but that was also not much more than a "we'll see what we can do, but no promises unless you're willing to stay on hold for 15 minutes" sort of thing. I passed on that too. I called AT&T from work and signed up for a DSL package. I'm not happy about it, but I think I've made it clear that I want Cablevision out of my life. They overnighted me a kit, and I hooked it up, and.... nothing. A call to their tech support for new installs reveals that they can't hook me up for some reason, and they'll get back to me about it. I expect to get a call on Monday, but who knows. I'm not happy, especially since what I received from them (a wireless router/DSL modem) is not what I requested (a DSL modem) since I have all the extra fancy stuff I need already at home. At this point, I fully expect them to tell me that they need to replace the equipment outside the house (a terminal, I think it's called) since it's a few years shy of being ancient. Oh, and quite dirty. But we'll see how that turns out on Monday. More updates as events warrant. Oh, and thanks mom and dad, for letting me use your internet while Ethan took an entirely too long nap.

Britney images have moved

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 09:28:17 -0500

Well, not really. But since I re-did all the category archives to only be links to the individual archives - some of the archives were rather large, and getting re-loaded too frequently for my tastes - I think some of the folks coming to the site in search of Britney Spears photos have been feeling a little... lost. So, the images themselves are collected here for your convenience. If you want to look at the posts related to Ms. Spears, you can go here. Thanks for stopping by!

How to make enemies and piss off the internet...

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 12:16:15 -0500

CL&P Blog: All Criticism of This Website Is Hereby Forbidden CL↦Blog brings up the topic of Dozier Internet Law's website and, more interestingly, their "User Agreement." Ooops. Apparently I've managed to mess up - I just linked to them, so I've violated the "User Agreement" of their site: We also do not allow any links to our site without our express permission There I go again - I quoted part of their website, which violates another part of the "browse-wrap" license agreement: Dozier Internet Law, P.C. has a lot of intellectual property on our site. For instance, we are the creators of all of the text on this website, and own the “look and feel” of this website. We also own all of the code, including the HTML code, and all content. As you may know, you can view the HTML code with a standard browser. We do not permit you to view such code since we consider it to be our intellectual property protected by the copyright laws. You are therefore not authorized to do so. In addition, you should not make any copies of any part of this website in any way since we do not want anyone copying us. I think I might be in a lot of trouble now. Good thing I have a handy dandy user agreement of my own. (For the record, even thinking about my website means that you agree to the terms. Of course, I really should modify the agreement to say that you also owe me $5 for loading the site. I think I might have stumbled upon a new "revenue stream" for the site...) Anyway, this type of heavy handed bullying has been tried before - and it usually fails before it even gets to the courtroom. On the rare occasion that it makes it that far, cooler heads usually prevail. I wonder if Dozier will come after me? Time will tell.....

Did you know.....

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 10:28:45 -0500

SI.com - Writers - Richard Deitsch: Q&A with Drew Carey:
Q&A: Drew Carey
Posted: Tuesday June 14, 2005 1:08PM; Updated: Tuesday June 14, 2005 4:58PM
Last week, Sports Illustrated associate editor Richard Deitsch interviewed Drew Carey for the magazine's Q&A. The actor-comedian has been following the U.S. men's national soccer team -- and moonlighting as a photographer. Here are some of Carey's photographs and excerpts from the interview. It's very interesting that he goes to such lengths to get "the good seats," but at the same time he's apparently quite a decent photographer.

Another fun ride in...

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 09:43:21 -0500

Today's fun ride into work was brought to you by Chaiyya Chaiyya, a fun little song from the movie Inside Man (Widescreen Edition). It's Indian or Pakistani or something - not really sure to be honest - but it's kind of fun and helped kill 6 minutes, 54 seconds of my commute this morning. I particularly like the percussion work, as it's rather complex at times. Oh, and if you just mouse over one of those links, you should get Amazon's fancy new product preview pop-up. It's kinda cool. And speaking of Amazon, did you know about Amazon MP3? Among the best reasons to patronize them is that, like the iTunes Music Store, you can buy just one song at a time if you so choose. You can also - get this - copy the song to any device you want. How? No DRM is applied to the songs. Madness!

Anyone got $1,000,000 I can borrow?

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 10:31:24 -0500

NIKE MISSLE BASE KC-SILO 60 - (eBay item 300156975741 end time Oct-31-07 05:23:14 PDT) Sure, it's 60 acres. And sure, the Missle silos are filled with water. But there's an 800 sq. ft. fortified bunker you can live in. I'm thinking.... * 1 silo filled with water for free diving * 1 silo with cargo netting for climbing * 1 silo turned into a rock wall/climbing area * paint ball in some of the land * "agri-tainment" in other bits * there's still room for the old homestead.... Of course, as Rudi pointed out, it's still in Kansas. Not that I have anything against Kansas - I just don't know if now is the best time to uproot the whole family and move.....

Cablevision: how much more can I take?

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 10:09:11 -0500

This might be boring, tedious, or both. If you don't have Cablevision for your internet/tv, or if you don't live in an area where they are located, or you just don't care, then move along. The rest of you can read more by clicking the link....

Zombie attack!

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 08:47:10 -0500

42%

Mingle² - Free Online Dating

I think I scored so "poorly" because I decided should Zombies attack, I'd try to save Jen and the kids. Obviously when I say "save," I'm referring to non-zombie attacked people - if they're bitten/infected/touched (a new variant of zombie, apparently) then I'm not going to be in denial and hope they can be saved. Zombie lore says that once they're infected, they're done for. Sad but true!