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Archive for the 'Life' Category

Branded

Monday, September 1st, 2008

Moving a 200lb. tv has it’s pros and cons. the pro: you’re getting rid of a 200lb. television. The con: while moving said television down a set of stairs, it jumps into your chest. I now have a bruise the size of a dvd cover. The only downside is that i got the corner of the tv in the chest. i would have much preferred the front of the tv so that my bruise could read “sony” backwards. that would have been hot.

sounds familiar

Saturday, August 16th, 2008

Covering the olympics, I’ve been watching a lot of tape delayed (boooooo, nbc. boooooo!) olympic coverage. I’ve also seen a lot of promos and filler footage. Those promos and fillers have something that sounds familier to the astute, campy-western-tv-show-watching viewer, NBC is using the theme music from The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.!

Oh, that show brings back memories.

timeshifting is horrible . . .

Sunday, August 3rd, 2008

Horribly awesome that is!

Well, not completely awesome, but it does cause one to have a few more moments in the middle of the night to discover odd nuggets of tastiness like Dr. Horrible’s sing along blog featuring mr. neal patrick harris and nathon fillion (of flrefly fame). Written my joss whedon, it definitely put a smile on my face.

sharing is caring, folks. sharing is caring.

Deal closed

Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008


green1JPG.JPG, originally uploaded by carmz4444.

Since the cat is mostly out of the bag by now, here’s a preview of the new place. Carmen threw a new coat of paint on it over the weekend and furniture will be slowly making its way through the doors over the next month.

My move in date is sometime around the end of august. Carmen has already abandoned her brooklyn domicile for the upgraded east village digs.

More before/after photos on carmen’s flickr stream.

Losing SUCKS!

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

I’ve been getting my ass handed to me in all sorts of ways over the past week. No day more prominent than yesterday in which 1) baray beat me in wii tennis, 2) baray beat me in the brain game, and 3) I proceeded to lose nine straight games of virtual tennis to dan83.

losing sucks.

Superhero Shape

Thursday, June 26th, 2008

Being a superhero ain’t easy. I can say this with some degree of confidence.

First, there’s the whole decision to become a superhero. The long hours, always being on call. Crime never sleeps, blah blah blah.

Once the decision is made, you have to get the superhero body, and apparently even old dudes are pretty ripped. This part takes the longest so getting started early is recommended.

Then, there are the duds. Unfortunately unlike people, not all long underwear are created equal. Apparently most or made for fat men with short torsos, no wrists, and long pinkies. Also, if you get the wrong stuff, your girlfriend with high standards will just laugh at you and say things like, “that’s the scariest looking mask i’ve ever seen.” Luckily, there are ways around that when you live in a city. Namely, go straight to the rental store. And when you go to the rental store, go there in a car. It doesn’t help your secret identity or your self image when you’re waiting at a muni stop with your garb in a dry cleaning bag.

Next, there’s pleasing the public. There are all sorts of aspects to this one. The public is a strange beast. Sometimes they run away from you. Sometimes they embrace you. Sometimes they ask you to do crazy things like crawl up the side of a wall. Mostly, though, they want to go hang out with cinderella. And, y’know, you just have to do the best you can. Saddle up and say, “hi, im’ really friendly. there’s no need to be scared. I’m a superhero.” Or, “You know, i only do that wall crawling thing when there are bad guys around.”

Finally, you have to look good when people are trying to take pictures of you. This might be the hardest part of the entire job. I mean, it’s like you need to be aware of every body position you make because the last thing you want is to be caught on camera slouching. That would just totally ruin your superhero street cred.

But, in the end it’s worth it. You put the effort in (no drinking, see superhero body above), make the sacrifices (hey, pride, get back here this instant!), and make sure you come through for people that matter.

Fedora 9 in the hizzie

Friday, June 6th, 2008

And so another fedora release has made its way onto my laptop. Have i ever said i need to find another distro? Well, i need to find a new distro. some low lights:

  • If you have an ATI card, sit this one out for a bit until the kids release an xorg 1.5 compatible version. my box is crawling here. crawling.
  • networkmanager is now the default . yup, it still sucks. every now and then it refuses to connect to my wireless net. sigh.
  • tried gnome/metacity again. up, it still sucks. so i installed windowmaker
  • windowmaker is BROKEN. sigh. i was about to go grab the source and compile it myself but windowmaker.info isn’t responding no more.
  • i’m giving xfce a try. i mean, how long can one stick with windowmaker anyway? it’s going alright so far. i mean i did install every possible config/tweak package for it
  • new synaptics touchpad driver now defaults to no tapping. yup, that sucks. sigh.

now for the highlights:

  • Upstart, the new init system, vastly increases boot speed. now i need to go read up on how it works.

yeah, i’m a little thin on the highlights . . . i need to find a new distro. . .

one-oh

Saturday, May 10th, 2008

talking to the chuburys the other day, it occurred to me that my career will be turning ten years old in a few short months. I’m not sure how I feel about that. On one hand, I feel a retrospective is in order. On the other, I feel like I’m too young to be thinking about a retro anything. I wish I had something more substantive to say about this mile marker.

I guess what I can say is that this past decade I’ve been incredibly lucky to have worked with some really wonderful people with whom I’ve formed enduring friendships, and for that I am very grateful.

So, thanks y’all!

Here’s to another ten. Cheers.

The day the music died . . . and subsequently its resurrection

Saturday, March 29th, 2008

I haven’t bought a cd since my new york days. In fact, i haven’t bought any new music analog or digital since i left new york. There hasn’t been a compelling reason to. Sure, I’ve longed for all those songs that i lost along the way from the dungeon to the beach chalet, but the music industry hasn’t been able to put together a compelling enough product for me. It was, “you can only play this on x number of machines” or, “sorry, our authentication server died so you can’t listen to your music” or, “don’t think about copying that or we’ll sue your ass.” Just not something i’d risk buying and using the way i want to use it. The RIAA did a darn good job in alienating me.

Welcome Itunes Plus and Amazon’s music offerings. 100% digital, DRM free and high quality. Holy cow, i’ve bought four albums in as many weeks. First it was retrieving the past with barcelona and the decemberists. Most recently it’s been kanye and alicia keys’ latest. If i weren’t so cash starved, i’d keep going. as it is, i have to pace myself. Maybe DJ Jonny MoirĂ©e will keep me sated for the time being. Anyway, both services have pros and cons. with Itunes, you really have to look hard to find the itunes plus stuff. with amazon, it’s just a little too easy to buy something. one wrong click and behold, a new album for your collection. Overall, though, i’m pleased as punch. I’ve been finding refuge in NPR, but, lordy, talk only gets you so far and sometimes you just have to belt out a few tunes. I’m sure the co-workers aren’t going to appreciate the next few weeks. oh. well.

Notes on the grammys

Tuesday, February 12th, 2008

if there is ever a night of music to tune in to, it’s the grammys. I love what they’ve done with the show. Focusing in performances rather than awards has resulted in an annual shot in the arm for the industry. too bad no one else is noticing. That being said, the grammys is both the best night for music and a display of how desperate the industry has become. The pairing of the old with the new and the american-idol-esque violin competition (violin competition?!?), just puts on display the failure of the industry to connect with its audience. that being said, a few remarks:

  • new rule: never, ever miss an alicia keys performance at the grammys. just don’t do it.
  • if the music industry could find some way to embrace kanye, and alternatively, if kanye could stop being such a prick, he could single handedly save the music industry
  • there’s something about rihanna. she doesn’t quite carry the room, yet, but maybe in a few years . ..
  • tina turner, good. botox’d tina turner in silver leotard, not so good.
  • dressing up carrie underwood like a whore? country music. still depressing after all these years.