Last time I took one of these things, I was Han Solo. But now I have discovered I was really Zhao Yun all along.
It’s funny — I had always figured myself as more of a Dian Wei type.
Monthly Archive for September, 2005
I feel compelled to note East Bay, a condominium community in Walled Lake. They have made awesomely cheesy radio spots which run relentlessly on the local irreverent talk-radio station. In the East Bay Village of the ads, the guys are all incredibly excited to be living so close to Walled Lake and are particularly jazzed about the volleyball court and the hot tub. Meanwhile, the women residents are near-catatonic, particularly with regard to “all. the. hot. guys.” that live in the neighborhood.
Everyone, however, is just delighted that they don’t have to live in Royal Oak, when Walled Lake is so close to Somerset, downtown Detroit, Michigan Stadium, and possibly the Outer Hebrides. [Yes, Bob Shuman is fond of noting that "Walled Lake is ten minutes from everywhere and five minutes from you," but come on. I drive through Walled Lake nearly every day, and it is a rather convenient location, but let's not get carried away. The closest Starbucks are still in the three towns bordering Walled Lake, although I suspect a Domino's may be on the verge of opening. Not that I'm saying that these are the superior choices, just widely accepted standards.]
A few things I’ve been meaning to write more about but never had the time and I’m sick of seeing them as “drafts.” So I’m dumping them as one item.
- One of the things I would never be able to do without the Internets is hear a guy named Homer Pimpson freestyle over the old NBA on NBC theme. As long as I’m at it, now would be a good time to point out Diffusion’s Diffusions Famous TV Theme Remixes [they're all British shows, though] and the French version of the A-Team theme [in mp3, scroll down], which is “the French version” because its lyrics are in French. Yes, it has sung lyrics. And they are in French. If you like NBC TV themes, also look for “Platinum Stars” by Li’l Flip, where the Pac-Man sampling Houston guy and his cronies flow over a break from “Gimme a Break!”
- Indie game reviews [that is, reviews of free and/or indie-published games] here
and here. - May have to investigate this further: a one-click installer for a VNC server hardwired to connect to you, intended for helpdesk applications, but maybe good for Mom and Dad’s computer too [your Mom and Dad, I mean; mine are on a Mac].
Aaah, that felt good. Off to bed.
Rick’s TV has a fine nostalgia page about kids’ programming on TVOntario. As a border dwelling TV consumer, we spent many an hour enjoying the TVO programming. Athough it seems like lots of people my age remember the dancing mannequin guy on “Today’s Special,” I never hear geeks give Billy Van and “Bits and Bytes” their shoutouts. [Occasionally I would have the Sunday afternoon Francophone block on in the background while playing with Lego or something, and once ran across the French version of "Bits and Bytes," which starred different actors and was called "Octo-Puce." No kidding.]
Also, Rick’s dream TV network shows “What’s Happening” and “What’s Happening Now” back-to-back every Monday and Friday starting at 4 [4:30 in Newfoundland]. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: nothing follows young Raj, Dwayne, and Rerun better than old Raj, Dwayne, and Rerun.
A billion years ago, I signed up for Firefly.
Long before it became a [totally unrelated] cult sci fi phee-nom, Firefly was a music-community/recommendation-service. You signed up for a free account and then filled in your profile with your favorite bands and albums. Then the service would query others’ profiles and suggest other musicians you might like [sort of like last.fm minus the streaming -- this was back when "RealAudio" was a cutting-edge experimental public alpha kind of thing and nobody had heard of mp3].
I liked Firefly and came to enjoy using it and even browsing the forums I seem to remember them having. [If you were there, I was "britain," just like my name.] Then, they got snap’t up by Yahoo!. And I went with the flow and came to enjoy the My Yahoo! custom homepage thing, with its updating news feeds [again, long before XML standards for syndicated feeds], a great deal.
Then, Yahoo! dropped the bomb. The firefly accounts were going to get folded into Yahoo! IDs. Someone else was already “britain” on Yahoo!, and I was going to have to change mine. I asked about keeping mine and got a courteous but clearly boiler-plate response reiterating the position. So I responded and asked how to close the account. There was paperwork, official identification, it all had to be faxed to Sunnyvale in triplicate — too much work. So I changed my Yahoo! ID to “jerryyanghatesme,” because, well, it seemed clear. And “Jerry Yang” is a slightly funnier name than “David Filo.” And then I pretty much fell out of the habit of using it. I signed up for a couple of Yahoo! Groups, which I rarely check.
So I signed up for Flickr last year. I hadn’t begun to use it yet but was getting excited about it, especially with my new camera finally on the way [a Kodak, 5-megapixel, with a printer dock]. Then they got, yes, bought by the ‘hoo, and the assimilation is beginning.
There are heavy flickr users who are promising to abandon Flickr when it finally becomes Yahoo! Photos 2ought6 or whatever. Ah well. I would imagine Jerry Yang doesn’t have much time to hate these days, what with being so busy eating bouillabaise off the chest of a Spearmint Rhino girl. [Just kidding about the eating and the Spearmint Rhino girl. I think.]
As for me, I’m thinking about moving from static HTML made with Galerie to Gallery, PhotoStack, or oneathem other photo sharing web systems. The difficult part for me is that a lot of the old Galerie galleries you can see on b&adotcom have been backed up to CDs, and it might take some digging to find the particular discs and re-generate for a new gallery system, as well as making a new template or adapting the old one to whatever new photo management system I might wind up doing [as Nicki has noted, that sort of thing can be a real drag for people who aren't designers by nature].
A visual tutorial to software-modding the Xbox the easy way.
Once you’ve modded it and are ready to stream stuff off your Mac with Xbox Media Center, follow these quick ‘n easy steps to set up a Share Point with, well, SharePoints.
Back in the day, I had to get Denis and Ronn to come over and mod it using Denis’ already-modded unit, and a laptop with FlashFXP and only FlashFXP, and it took, like, an hour. And then I followed these considerably more convoluted steps to share the media amongst the machines. The good thing about that is that the xbox wasn’t logging in with my admin account, which worries me, but I just couldn’t get it to work again after I upgraded both my XBMC version and my Mac [got a new one] in the space of a few weeks.
I would’ve really liked the white “Nation of Millions” shirt with the giant P.E. crosshair logo on the back, but who’s choosing? The product description on this one is not to be missed.
Out the lakes way we get a weekly newspaper called, mysteriously, Spinal Column. I like it because they cover news very specific to Oakland County and especially this particular area of Oakland County. The police blotter is occasionally hilarious, but for real laughs you have to go to the letters.
Two weeks ago, some smug genius responded to Shuttle Commander Eileen Collins’ comments on deforestation by pointing out that tropical forests are depleting at the rate of only Only ONLY… one half of one percent per year. So, at the current rate, in 200 years, they would be gone! Ah well, we’ll be dead and cold by then, let the great-grandkids figure that out.
Then this week, another letter from an outraged family, responding to this article about the new library in Commerce Township, where, get ready for it, you can pee on Osama Bin Laden. The director of the library admits, in the article, that the urinal shields were left over from when the building was a country club’s clubhouse*, and they just never got around to removing them.
The letter defends — DEFENDS — the splashguards. It notes, correctly, that Bin Laden is a terrorist, and incorrectly, that the splashguards should remain in the men’s room of the library.
Libraries need to operate outside of jingoism and invective. Libraries are intended for the exchange of ideas and the enrichment of intellect, not for tacky novelty items. I agree in spirit with their message and I think they’d be fine for a bar, or any other private business [though I suspect Morgan Stanley or the other tenants wouldn't have let the management place these things even in the WTC's restrooms]. Heck, even City Hall, if it were a particularly irreverent City Hall. But not in a library.
* For real. The only township library in the western hemisphere with an eighteen-hole golf course… as far as we know!
CNN covers the denouement of the Wendy’s Chili Fiasco.
“Thankfully, law enforcement thwarted their successful efforts at theft,” said Deputy District Attorney David Boyd.
Well, which is it? Successful or thwarted? It can’t be BOTH, law enforcement.
with a comprehensive report on from whence it sprung.
I just finished pulling this stuff off the walls of the nursery, the last legacy of the wallpaper-loving previous homeowners. We painted the room sage, although Mr. Fix-It Jonathan termed it “Key Lime Sherbet.” We had intended to raise the baby without corporate logos or licensed mascots, but are finding the Classic Pooh stuff growing on us. But only the Classic Pooh, not the modern Pooh.
I guess now is as good a time as any to officially announce that Abbey and I are expecting a child in the coming fall season. I hesitate to offer further details because I want to let the child decide whether they want to air all their personal details on The Internets. If you are important, you will know. If you think you should be important, drop me a line and I will make you important. If you can’t figure out how to contact me in some manner, you are probably not important.
