December 2002 Archives

ZDNet |UK| - News - Story - Open source and Sun save Christmas

Interetsing article on different OS manufacturer's pitches to Santa.

Well, it's that time of the year again. I've got a number of resolutions. One is kind of big and all encompassing and some other small ones. Here goes:

1. Take better care of myself. This is the big one. This means a number of things. The biggest one would be getting myself to eat better. I need to be cooking for myself more often and eating better foods. Maybe even doing some working out and stuff. And the last part, at some point (no, not at midnight) I need to quit smoking this year. Smoking American Spirits has totally cut down on my smoking, now I just need to quit.
2. Play more guitar. I would like to start doing this much much more. I figure if I can practice a couple hours a night, I can get much better. I also need to use the resources available to me (like the 20 guitar players I know), to help out with this one.
3. Along the same lines as the last one, I need to find more productive things to do with my time. I want to stop watching as much TV as I do now (oh, I wish I had digital cable, so I could get a TiVo). Even if this means playing some video games here and there, maybe doing some programming, etc. I just need to get out of the come home from work, crash out in front of the TV cycle I have been stuck in.
4. Better money management. This one if huge. I can't continue to go through life living check to check. I have a number of of ways to fix this. First off, I need to control my spending when going out. I can't just spend like I have a million dollars. Second, I need to live by the budget I wrote out for myself. Third, I will be helping out the band from time to time now, so that is cash as well as free alcohol, so that helps out in 2 ways.

I think those are the big ones for now. I also think that will be enough for me to handle. No need to add useless stress in to my life :)

Pats win! Let's go Green Bay, I want some playoff football!

Ahhh, made it back to Boston in one piece. The drive was easy, no traffic at all. The cat whining the last hour of the ride was somewhat annoying, but thats what I get for taking a cat on a 6 hour trip. It took me like 8 or 9 loads to get everything up to my apartment, but I did get a space right across the street, so it made it easier than it could have been. I've put most stuff away, took a shower and now waiting for my buddy to come over, so we can grab some chow and then go see the band.

The one thing I always forget I miss so much until I get home is water pressure. I took a shower after putting everything away and the water blasted me. It felt very nice. My mom's water pressure sucks and you hardly get a rain down on you when showering. I never feel like I got 100% clean. Now I feel good and clean and ready to party (well, ready to EAT and then party). Fun times.

Tomorrow will be some football, some LOTR Extended Edition, some catch up on the week and some RnR. Fun fun.

I'm off to Boston in about 45 minutes. Hopefully, it will be an uneventful trip that will pass rather quickly. I do wish I had had my CD burner here with me, so I could have burned this Phish show I downloaded last night, but whatever. Hopefully the array of CDs I have will hold up just fine. I definitely think I am going to need to get a bunch of new music in the near future, but I think that all depends on the all mighty dollar and how it plays out. Well, time to shut down the machine and pack it up. See everyone back when I get back home.

God damn! I just signed up for Live Phish and they are offering a free download of the last show of the 2000 tour as a gift and to test out that things work ok with your system. Well, I am listening to the show and it sounds INCREDIBLE. It must be soundboard. I definitely will be using this service for at least the NYE show, if not the whole New Years Run. It's $35 for all 4 shows in MP3 format. The quality is good enough that there will be no problem burning these out on to CD and listening to them any time (which is allowed, don't worry RIAA, I am not doing anything ILLEGAL here). Definitely gonna use this service as they release the shows I have been to and the ones I go to. They are even doing CD liners and booklets for all the shows, how freakin cool is that? This is definitely the new abuse system :)

Hmmm, I just remembered something. Last year at the beginning of December I got email from Netflix saying that my membership was automatically upgraded by a movie for a month. That was a really cool thing to do. This year, no extra movie. That made last winter a high movie turnover month, but I guess it won't happen this year. I also noticed that as of March I will have been with Netflix for 2 years. I can say nothing bad about the service, especially now that they have a distribution center in MA. I get a new movie 2 days after I send a finished one out. It's awesome. Definitely something you should try out if you have a DVD player and like to watch movies.

Coming home always reminds me of why I live in a city. Being that it is Friday night, I assumed my sister and her friends would be going out. Well, that has completely fallen through. Now I get to sit at home on a Friday night, without a TV, without going out and bored out of my skull. It's just not fun at all. Considering if I was in Boston, I would be on my second or third beer, at least, at the very least actually, it kinda sucks that I am stuck here. I didn't even want to go out and be crazy tonight, just wanted to go out and have a few beers, relax, recover from the holidays and family and just have some fun. Now I get in my car in the morning having had no relief at all and have to sit in my car for 6 hours. This is just not good. I guess tomorrow night will end up getting UGLY. That's never good, but at least it will be one night of fun in over a week. Whatever, maybe I can find some stuff to catch up on.

This is post number 200. Considering I started in late April this year and only had three posts in April, May and June combined, I think I have done pretty good in keeping this up. It has been a nice outlet for thoughts in my head as well as music and movie reviews, tech stuff, news happenings, etc. I really am liking this whole thing. I think if I put up 200 posts in 6 months (well 197 to be exact), I can't wait to see how much posting I do next year. I have definitely gotten more and more in to this as time has gone. I still need a real news aggregator considering the amount of blogs I read daily has gone up considerably over time, but other than that, I am really enjoy the whole blog world.

So, Christmas has come and gone. I hope everyone had a good one. I got back to Long Island on Saturday, went to see Dave Matthew that night and then ran around shopping for 2 days. Christmas Eve, my sister and I headed over to my Dad's for our annual Christmas stuff. In Norway, Christmas Eve is a bigger day than Christmas itself, so we have always done stuff with Dad's side of the family on that day. It was nice, Dad, his girlfriend, my uncle and then my sister and her boyfriend. We had a nice dinner and made off with some good loot. Afterwards, I headed over to my Mom's friends' house for a drink and to say Merry Christmas to everyone. When we got home, Mom, my sister and I exchanged gifts. I got most everything on my list, so I was pleased. Some new jeans were a very nice piece of that puzzle. I have been needing some for a while. Will be nice not to have to wear the same 2 pairs all the time now. Reports were for a major snow storm on Christmas day, so heading to Saratoga like we do every year was looking bleak. When we got up in the morning, the weather seemed like it was going to be a bit better than we had thought, so we headed out. It took SEVEN hours to get to Saratoga (normally 4) in a horrible snow/freezing rain/rain mix, but in the end we made it. It was nice to be there once we arrived though. I finally got to meet my newest cousin, Jameson, which was very cool. Some drinks and dinner ensued. We got up the next morning and headed back down to Long Island. I drove the whole way. It took about 5 hours of driving time, which was slower than normal but not all that bad. Took it easy last night and watched a movie. Some minor running around today to pick up some more stuff for the apartment. Hoping to do some drinking this evening and then back on the road in the morning to head back to Boston. Been a much quicker week than I had hopef for. I really thought I may get some coding done, but between plans and shopping, that hasn't happened in the least. Saturday will be a non-day with the travel and then going out to see my friends. Sunday will be a relax and put everything away day and then back to work on Monday for a on again off again on again week. I hate Wednesday off.

Random pictures of the rocking ferry, the animals (including the new puppy) and the snow (2 FEET in Saratoga) are here.

For Immediate Release CLEAR CHANNEL ENTERTAINMENT PURCHASES CHRISTMAS AND HANUKKAH

Ya know, I knew people did not like Clear Channel, but this is just pushing it.

Well, I am down on Long Island for the week for Christmas. Got down yesterday and will be here until next Saturday. Hopefully I will get some R&R while down here and it can manage to take my mind off some stuff going on in other parts of my life. I hope to even start some projects that have been festering in the back of my head for a while now. If I can get that going, I may find another outlet for my time, which would be much better than the damn TV. Stupid AT&T, why can't they install digital cable in my area, so I can get a TiVo (with what money, I don't know) and be able to save TV for the weekend and make my weeks more productive. More production is definitely in the cards for New Year's resolutions. I have a ton of them that I am thinking of. I will get them down here at some point before next week. Most of more vague than deadline type things. I am definitely not saying I will quit smoking at midnight, but I think I may say something like I will quit some time this year or something. Who knows? Well, I think I have caught up on the last few days goings on. Been a crazy few days, but in the end, good fun. Today was the laziest. Good to see my Giants win, rather sad to see my Patriots look like crap and seemingly have done a great job of getting themselves out of the playoffs. Argh. I don't need another Super Bowl victory, but at least a playoff birth would have been nice. Well, no stressing about football while on vacation, right? I think I am going to go have a quick smoke and hit my bed with my book. I'd like to try and finish it this week. (yeah, more reading will be in the cards for that resolution list as well).

and I'm not liking it. My cash situation, as I have mentioned a few times before here, has been less than stellar this year, so I really don't have all that much money to spend this Christmas season. I really like being able to spend whatever I want on presents and getting things that make people happy and this season I feel like I can't. I know its the thought that counts and all, but I am definitely a fan of the finer things in life and it's no fun when you can't pass that along to other people. Hopefully this next year will bring me some better financial times and things will be much better come this time next year.

Yes, yesterday was a busy day. After driving down to Long Island from Boston starting at 9:30 and getting in at 3:30, I jumped on the LIRR to MSG to go see Dave Matthews. I almost backed out due to being so tired from the drive and the CD release party the night before, but then remembered the tickets were at will call and there was no way else for anyone to pick them up. So, my sister and I headed in to the city, met up with her boss and his brother, each of their wives and my sister's boyfriend (yeah, odd man out I was). We had some dinner and then headed in. I was hoping to catch the opening band, Karl Denson's Tiny Universe, but only caught the last 5 mins or so of his set. In the end, it didn't matter.

Dave came out playing some of the big stuff, as well as some oldies, but goodies. He did a kick ass version of All Along the Watchtower with a great jam in it, way early on in the set (about an hour in) and I was rather confused. I felt that would have been an awesome way to end the night and I knew he wasn't going to stop that early. He did 2 more songs and then called out Karl Denson's Tiny Universe. They did So Much to Say right in to Too Much, both sounding awesome. Then the strangest thing I think could ever happen at a Dave show happened. He uttered the words, "Ladies and Gentlemen, the Godfather of Soul, JAMES BROWN!". I was floored. Out come James and friends and they bust in to a 15 minute jam of Sex Machine, which included both a Carter and Karl solo, and James and Dave dancing together. Ridiculous stuff. I don't think I have ever heard an arena so loud. Right at the end a bunch of cannons go off and shoot white confetti in to the air, so it looked like it was snowing. Amazing stuff. The band comes back after about 5 minutes for an Encore. They all put on Santa hats, tease Christmas Song and then bust out in to Halloween. Of course, being a show of this magnitude, they finished off with Ants Marching. Overall, an amazing freakin show. Most definitely the best Dave show I have ever seen. The set list was as follows:

Drive In Drive Out *
Granny *
Christmas Time Is Here (tease) *
Dont Burn The Pig *
What Would You Say *
Grey Street *
Fool To Think *
Loving Wings (tease) *
Where Are You Going *
Seek Up *
Digging a Ditch *
Watchtower *
Grace Is Gone *
The Space Between *
So Much To Say *+ -->
Anyone Seen the Bridge? -->
Too Much *+ -->
Sex Machine *+~
Encore
Halloween * -->
Ants Marching *

* with Butch Taylor on keys
+ Karl Denson's Tiny Universe
~ James Brown and Friends

Wow, good way to start Christmas week. And yes, the tired feeling I had was gone about 2 songs in.

Took the ferry down to Long Island yesterday afternoon. The board in the reservation office said that the sea was calm to moderate. Well, sitting up on the top deck, it sure seemed a lot crazier than moderate. I literally watch the boat sway a good 10-12 feet on some waves. Was almost like a roller coaster. Thank God I don't get sea sick. I think I am glad I decided to sit outside by myself instead of being inside with everyone, I would have feared all sorts of people getting sick. I did make it home in one piece though.

A big congratulations goes out to my good friends Central Basement who celebrated their first CD release party for Extended Play at The Rack this past Friday night. The CD sounds amazing and hopefully this will lead to bigger and better things for the band. I'm hoping the tons of pictures I took on Friday came out ok. They should be up on the web site in the morning.

Is this an award that really should be given out? Do people who write virii strive for this?

at 10:30 at night is no fun whatsoever.

Days like today are crazy. Today started out total shit. After getting a rather unpleasant e-mail in response to something I sent out last night and responding to it before I even got in the shower, I headed in to the office to end up in a shitstorm, which I caused by standing up for myself. So, the day goes on and nothing seems to be helping this storm end, Finally we get something together to get to work (I was in danger of having to fly to Memphis). One of the other guys and I put our heads down and get working on this and at 8:15 I sent out mail to all the people who I started with this morning telling them I was all done. Finally got home around 9:30. Ugh. Long day, in the end a very accomplished day, though I didn't get to any of my normal work, but I guess that can be done tomorrow (by 4, since that's when the company party starts :) Oh yeah, and somewhere in there I think I am getting a free lunch or 3. Draining day, hughs and lows, but overall, I guess it was a good day. Having only 2 Hostess cupcakes between when I got up and 10PM was probably not the best way to keep my energy level up though. Woops.

Can I tell you how much I hate incompetent people? Even more so when they make my life more difficult. ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Someone shoot me now. I have too much fucking going on in my life to have to deal with this shit. This is just no fun.

A pic of Bogie and BT.

Can I get this for Christmas? Please?

A nice piece by The Joel likening recruiting to the dating scene. very interesting and in my opinion all too true.

Creative Commons Unveils Machine-Readable Copyright Licenses

So, I think I understand this whole concept. Still a bit fuzzy though. It seems to me they want people to be able to allow copyrighted material on the Internet with some limitations and as long as people follow those limitations it will be good. They now have a "machine readable" version of their licenses available, which I guess means I could now link in to them or something if I had any copyrighted material on my web pages and tell people via one of these licenses what they can and can't do with it. Will be very intereting to see what comes of this. Anyone want to tell me how close I am to having this right?

A nice article over on digitalMASS about some "important" Boston-based bloggers. Scott says he normally does a technology trends for the next year article around now, but doesn't really see any. He says watching these blogs may help you see things as they are coming up. A good list. I've added those I didn't have yet on my "aggregator" on to it. Only small problem is 3 of the 7 don't have XML feeds. Boo hiss. Blogs are supposed to have XML feeds so they can be aggregated. Get on this guys.

Fear my photography skills.

Can it just not snow anymore? Maybe I should just go somewhere where it doesn't snow. Nahh, I like seasons, I just don't like snow messing up my commute. Luckily it seems as if my boss doesn't mind too much if I work from home as long as I am really getting things done.

It was a good weekend overall. Started on Thursday with my buddy Jeremy in town. I haven't seen Jeremy since April, so it was good to see him. He was in town on business and we were his fun for the evening. We headed to Sissys early for dinner and some drinks. A bunch of people met us there. About 10, we headed over to the Bell in Hand to see Central Basement. We had TOO good a time. Friday, there were a number of phone calls, e-mails and online conversations being had about what exactly happened the last hour or two of the night before. Not many people seemed to have a clue. Always a sign of a good time. I worked from home on Friday and then eventually headed down to The Rack to see the band (and maybe try and get some details about the night before. Was a fun night. Hung out with the usual suspects for a lot longer than I usually do after the show as it was not as crowded and crazy as it usually is. I actually got introduced to two more of the "Front Row" crowd who I had seen, but never met before. I headed to Sissys for some late night beers, eventually getting in around 3:30 or so. Saturday afternoon I had the dentist, which I was (as always) 10 minutes or so late to. I finally got out about 3 1/2 hours later. The good news is I only have 3 more appointments and only 1 more is actual drilling and attempting to hurt me. Finally I will have a mouth in one piece. I need to remember to bring my digital, so I can get a picture of the before picture and then take an after, its scary. I talked to a couple of the guys in the band to try to figure out my ride down to the The Funway. I ended up meeting one of the guitar players at The Rack and then we headed down to the Funway in the horrid rain. Got down there around 7. Played some games. Got my ass handed to me by Tim in Air Hockey. Band finally went on like 10:45. I got to play photographer once again. A fun night. Today was productive day. I got a bunch of stuff both in the digital world and real world done. Cleaned up my INBOXs, cleaned the cat litter, went to the store for some essentials, oragnized my bills (which number way too many), did all the dishes, ate lunch and dinner, caught up on some web reading, etc. Hopefully this productive day will lead to a nice productive week. Off to bed now, but all in all a sucessful "stalking-filled" weekend.

Oh yeah, and nobody should forget the band's first (and hopefully not only) CD release party this Friday at The Rack.

Sleep now.

I just watched (watched being a relative term as I was doing both computer and house work while watching) Dave on Encore. I have seen this movie a ton of times, but its always nice to watch something like this when not really paying attention. I think its a totally cute movie and it's nice to have a movie you know on in the background while trying to get things done. It makes it so that you only have to pay attention when you feel like it because you have seen it so many times. All sorts of fun.

I am actually getting more stuff done today (scary, twice in a week). I went through both my work and personal INBOXs and did some major house cleaning. I went from about 400 messages between the 2 of them, down to 19. And I still have a few more to answer and get pushed out in to folders. Now that I have digitally cleaned up, I need to do some more cleaning around the house.

malevole - A Tribute to Ray Harryhausen

This is some of the funniest stuff I have seen in a while.

So, I got the good news call yesterday that we were able to secure 4 tickets for each of the Phish shows out in Vegas. Should be an amazing weekend. We got 2 tickets to the Worchester show through mail order as well. Going to be a very fun couple of weeks in Feb. Yay!

Just went to put the phone book away and sent my iron flying to the floor and in to pieces. Ugh. At least it was a cheap iron and easily replacable. Now the real question is do I need another iron right now or can I hold off on getting one for a bit. I think the answer is B.

So, I have been trying to keep up a To Do list in Evolution. Well, I looked today and there is much too much red on it. I need to get going on some of this stuff. Being that I only have this week in Boston and then I am off to NY for a week, it would be very good to have a lot of that stuff done. Some of it is work stuff, some of it is house stuff, etc. Definitely need to have a productive week this week.

Google has a beta of its new shopping site, Froogle, up now. Since Google has seemingly become the standard search enging these days, what does this mean for online merchants? I think this has both positive and negative impacts. This could cause some GREAT price wars in cyberspace. If I can check every store all at once, why the hell would I buy something for a dollar more than some other place? My fear is that this could drive some smaller companies that can't buy things in large quantities and therefore can not have as low of prices right out of business. People would REALLY have to have some level of a niche market to be able to survive. Could play out in a very interesting way. At this point this just looks to be to be a search engine for products, but some day, I would not be suprised to see google offering things like Froogle Storefronts (much like Yahoo Stores). I guess we will just have to wait and see.

I have a great sense of accomplishment tonight. Over the course of this evening, I got the following things done:

Did 3 loads of laundry
Cleaned the kitchen
Cleaned my bedroom
Cleaned up the living room
Changed the cat's liter

Just waiting for the last load of laundry to come out of the dryer and then put the sheets back on to my bed and then I will head off to read some more of my book. I need to get up in the morning early, so that I can get to work, so I can leave early to go out on the town with some friends.

Now this. is some funny shit. Thanks to cms for the link. Reading my blog using this makes it much more amusing.

Boston Globe Online / Nation | World / Towns lead way on smoking ban

If vote goes through, no more smoking in bars in Boston. I wonder if Cambridge has one of these, maybe I will have to start hanging out there more often.

So, I decide to FINALLY start getting some of my laundry done tonight. I headed down and there was stuff in the dryer that was done, but nothing in the washer machine, so I threw my stuff in. Wash takes about 26 minutes, so when I got up here, I set the timer on my stove and went back to TV. After 25 minutes, the timer went off and I waited for another 5 or 10 minutes before heading down because I was waiting for a commercial break. Commercial came, I ran down. Laundry was still in dryer. As I headed down half way through the commercials, I hurried back up hoping someone would hear the door to the basement going and would remember their laundry and come get their shit. Next commercial, I headed down again and the laundry was still there. This time, I took it all out and put it on top of the dryer and started my stuff. I just went to get my stuff out of the dryer another hour later and finally all the stuff is gone. When you live in a building with 10 apartments and only one washer and dryer set, please please please remove your clothes as soon as they were done and don't let them linger. Thank you.

when things just start off bad and continue to spiral. Finally dragged my ass out of bed at 9:30, didn't get to work until after 10:30. That's never a good start. I guess that whole sleeping better last night thing didn't work as well as I had hoped. Can someone call do over now? And of course, that was just the beginning .....

I have not been sleeping well as of late. Even on nights when I sleep through the night (usually alcohol fueled and on the couch), I end up getting up way earlier than I would expect. At the same time, I have no motivation to get out of my actual bed. I guess I just have way too much on my mind. I need to get past some of the current issues I am having. I thought I had solved one of the major ones lately, but that has turned in to a new issue which I am none too happy about. I have been trying to at least keep a to do list, so I feel like maybe some days I am actually accomplishing something. This seems to be working to some level, but I notice more and more in red, which means I am not getting things done by the time I specify. The more this list builds, the more the stress builds, the less I sleep. I think maybe tonight's calm night will help out some. I did SOMETHING, but it wasn't drinking and wasn't sitting in front of the TV. I think the TV is my biggest enemy right now. I get home, turn it on and never leave it. I REALLY wish I had a freakin TiVo. It looks like maybe digital cable is going to be a reality in my neighborhood soon, which means I will be able to get a TiVo and then maybe I can change my TV viewing habits. That would be a good thing for me. I would rather spend 4 hours on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon catching up on a week's worth of TV rather than wasting every night finding something (anything most of the time) to watch. I think that woiuld help me concentrate better and get some motivation to get some stuff done while I am around the house. I think another thing which would help that would be some new music. I have not been able to expand my CD collection much over the last year because of a lack of funds and I think if I had some new stuff to listen to around the house I would more often. Also, since I do listen to music all day at work, Listening to some new music at home does not come in to play as much. I need to start turning the stereo on when I get home instead of the TV. I think this could help too. I also think if I was eating better, my body would feel better and that would help me as well. That has also been an issue due to cash concerns. The smoking is obviously the last big issue. I find myself more and more waking up at night and smoking. If I could quit cigarettes, it would help me out in so many ways. I seem to be getting better with the new cigarettes (that's a post I have been putting off), but still, I wake up and decide to smoke. This is an issue for me. I need to stop this. I never had this issue before. Ugh. The last problem, I don't want to go to sleep. I'm tired, but I never crawl in to bed, I flip through channel, find random shit on and start watching, or at least to some level. That's another habit I have to quit. I think if I started getting up earlier (like 6), I would be much better about this. Also, if I started getting in that early, I could leave at like 4 and be home earlier and be able to get more stuff done, which would remove stress, which would get me to bed earlier after making a good dinner, etc etc etc. OK, this turned in to a lot more of a rambling post than it was ever meant to be. I am going to go to sleep now, as I am tired, though my book will probably keep me up for another hour or two. Good night all 3 readers (or at least thats all I believe I have)

Well, Tanya seems to be having a bad day or at least one where she is thinking of bad things and Lukas seems to be dealing with a bunch of stuff that he really shouldn't have to. Though I'm not having a particularly bad day, at least no worse than any other, I did have a strange night.

After some debating with myself, I decided I was going to go down and see a couple of my friends play. As I got down there, I noticed they weren't playing. That's no fun, especially since I dragged myself out in the freezing cold to see them. As I got to the door, I did notice that two new friends are mine were in there. So I went in to talk to them quickly and was going to head to my regular bar for a drink. Well, we ended up talking for over an hour, in which (because I kept thinking we would be done in a minute), never ordered a drink (which was somewhat of a nice protest to my buddies not playing ;) When we finally parted ways, I headed over to Sissys to grab one or two drinks and then head home. Well, while walking over, I bumped in to one of the managers and he said they had just closed because of a lack of business. I did have one other friend playing around town, but I am not really a fan of the bar he was in, so I just headed home. So, now I sit here at home, having spent 2 1/2 hours or so out of the house to just sit and talk with some friends. Spent $2 in total. Very strange.

It seems like everyone and their brother is blogging the SuperNova conference out in Palo Alto today and tomorrow. You can find out some of the names here at the group blog. From there you can probably find a list of others who are blogging it as well. Sounds like some interesting talk going on at this point. Its nice to be able to "watch" a conference and "hear" what is going on. The even better part is hearing pieces from many people's perspectives. I saw some of this when Jeremy Zawodny blogged the pieces of PHPCon he went to (which can be found here), but have never seen it on this level. I wonder how promoters will react to this. At a conference like this one where decentralization is the main topic, I would think they will be excited about it. On the other hand, a show where people are attending classes and such, would there be a worry that less and less people would show up because this was being done? If I could attend all sorts of conferences virtually would I ever want to pay to go to one? On the other hand, if I am doing this, isn't it my duty (that may be too strong a word) to return the favor and go to conferences myself and blog them for the masses as well? All very interesting stuff to think about.

MTV.com - News -UPDATE: Guns N' Roses Tour Canceled

You would think after 10 years or whatever out of the scene and doing his own thing, Axl could stop being an idiot and get his shit together. Apparently not. What could have been one of the best returns in music in a long time has turned in to a just another Axl fuck up. Man, am I glad I didn't go and see them and add some more money to his pockets.

One more update on the cat. She has seemingly settled in pretty well now. She is pretty much out constantly, not hiding any more, which is nice. She's eating fine as well. My biggest issue is she seems to like to attempt to put more litter on the floor than leave in the litter box. I even noticed she slept in bed with me last night, which is a first. I worry though that may have been because I was home all day, so she was up during the day all day yesterday and tonight, she will have slept all day and will have more fun chasing after my body moving under the sheets rather than just calmly sleeping. We will have to wait and see.

when the Windex in your trunk is frozen solid which leads you not to be able to clean all the salt off your windows from last week's snow. Brrrrrr

So, I have not really watched the Sopranos over the years, but any time I have seen it, it seemed like a pretty good show. After all the hype over the seasons, I decided I would try to watch this season. Now, I was half-hearted in my effort, as I went out a number of Sunday nights and failed to catch it other nights of the week. Overall, I thought this season was pretty bad. I missed some of what were considered the better episodes, but I just felt they kept trying to build, but never actually came to a conclusion. If the Sopranos getting seperated was the big conclusion, I am rather disappointed. I think I need to go back and watch the first three seasons and see what happens from there.

If only donation programs like this really worked .....

I need to figure out where I can order good Chineese takeout in the South End of Boston. I had a lot of bad luck when ordering from random places in JP, so I want a recommendation and all my friends in the South End have been useless so far.

I started doing some winter cleaning today. My place is rather a mess and it needs a good scrubbing. I figured the best room to start with was the smallest, so I cleaned up the bathroom real good. Cracker (the cat) had done a good job of spreading litter all over the floor which made it feel to me a lot dirtier than it really was (though it was pretty damn dirty). I did some work in kitchen and the living room too. My bed room and office are the two that still need a lot of work. Most of the problem with my bedroom is clothes, so hopefully I can get to a bunch of loads of laundry tomorrow and maybe some more on Monday to get all that cleaned up. Once the house is all clean, hopefully I will feel like living in it some more instead of living in the bars :)

having to battle with database and application servers at 4PM on Friday. Can it please be 5, so I can just go home and take a nap.

A very cool story about something doc experienced while riding the T yesterday, though I have to say I kept waiting for it to end in the guys trying to get him to join a cult or some such thing :)

I think people would be much happier if more people could do this. I know that I myself am horrible at this. Unless I know someone or have some link to them, I am very nervous and to myself. Being a barfly, I eventually do meet a lot of people around me, but usually that is with some prodding by either beer or some mutual connection. I wish I could be better about that kind of stuff. I really would like to be more outgoing always, not just when having had some drinks or being in a comfort zone. Maybe I should try talking to random people. I worry I would come off as some strange person if I started doing that though. At least some people in this world can do it and not feel strange about it.

Two stories coming out of NY sports. First off, the Mets have signed Tom Glavine. Good for them. Hopefully it will help with the team next year.

The sad news is the second piece, the Islanders say that Friday night is not going to be a fight night. No fun at all. I was really hoping for a revenge night. Watch Tucker just get turned to a bloody pulp. But, maybe its just me.

According to this article over at Yahoo News, Kevin Smith has signed on to co-write and executive produce Scary Movie 3. Maybe this time it will actually be good, since I felt the first two fell rather short. With David Zucker from The Naked Gun and Airplane already signed on to direct, this could possibly be one of the funniest spoofs ever.

It's snowing! And this is supposed to be some real snowfall. Supposedly we are going to get somewhere between 2 and 5 inches. Heard predicitions all over the place. I wonder if I can get two days of working from home out of this, as I stayed home today to not have to battle the snow filled traffic on the way home this evening.

to my good friend Carl on getting a new job, too bad it wasn't with my company.

on the radio that ends with call 1-800-FACIALS for more information. I keep thinking its a sex line. Yes, my mind works in perverted ways.

Slacked in this category for a while and since a) I am excited about the movies on their way and b) I am sitting and waiting for a database to build, I should post some reviews. Movies coming tomorrow are Men in Black II and Austin Powers in Goldmember. Should be a good movie watching weekend. (Though with a party on Saturday and the Pats on Sunday, who knows if I will really get to them). Now, on to some recent rentals from Netflix as always.

The Sweetest Thing
This movie was cute. Basically showing the raunchier side of women. In the end was a love story, but had some rather amusing moments. Definitely something I would watch on cable if it came on and I was sitting around, but don't think it would be something I am going to go and buy.

Star Wars Episode 2: The Attack of the Clones
Much better than Episode 1, thank God. The last 20-30 mins were STELLAR visually and action-wise. The movie overall was still pretty good. I don't think I liked Hayden Christensen as Anakin. I just didn't like the way he delivered some lines. I did like him in Life as a House, but though his line deliveries were similar in that movie, they fitted his character more there. I'll probably pick this one up on DVD eventually to have and watch from time to time.

The Queen of the Damned
This one definitely fell short. I didn't feel they really worked the plot out as much as they could have in the movie. I haven't read the book (or any of her books, YET!), so I didn't know the back story and I felt like it was not well developed in the movie. I did like the music a ton though. Jonathan Davis of Korn sounds great as the Vampite Lestat.

The Sum of All Fears
I liked this MUCH more than I thought I would. Ben Affleck did a rather good job of portraying a young Jack Ryan. I did think he got a bit jittery at times as Ben does, but I thought the plot worked real well. I was suprised by some aspects of it, as it was not the happy go lucky movie I assumed it to be. Some real nice visual effects in this one as well.

That's all for now. I still need to catch a couple of movies in the theater like 8 Mile and more so Harry Potter. I say more so, because the visual effects are much better on the big screen than my little TV. Some day I will buy the 36 or 50 something inch TV I reaaly want.

I need one of these to get me between bars downtown.

but, its fucking cold outside

il est fucking froid dehors

(no idea of how to say fuckin in french :)

A joke from andersja. This is not a funny joke at all, since I am tenatively planning on heading to Norway in late spring or early summer. I don't like cold to begin with, I am going to enjoy this kind of cold much less.

I changed the links section to a blog roll and have added many of the sites I read on a normal basis. Basically, just took all the ones from my aggregator and put them on here. I also read some which don't currently have RSS feeds, so I still need to add them in, will do that as I surf tomorrow. I should be in bed, I think I will go do that now. Night kids.

I grabbed the Netflix plugin for Movable Type tonight. I installed it and added it to the top level page. You can see the completely random list of movies I am planning on getting the near future now. Suggestions are always welcome :)

hmmmm, the weather applet on my gnome panel says its snowing. I guess I should get off my ass and check on that. As long as it is done by the morning I will be fine with it. if its still snowing when i get up, i will be PISSED.

Well, it seems as if my cat is slowly losing her fear of my apartment. I found her under the bed when I got home, but she has since been hanging out in the living room with me, seemingly getting herself acquainted with the place. She still seems a bit skittish when she hears noises or things (including me) move in the house, but all in all she seems to be getting much more normal. Yay!

Though I have never been diagnosed with it, I am pretty sure I have ADD. I can't ever be doing just one thing at once, I get bored and move to other things quickly, etc. Well, today, I am definitely having an ADD day. I can't concentrate for the life of me (though that may have something to do with being out til 2AM :), I keep starting to do something and then switching over to something else and I just can't seem to make any forward progress. Ugh.

An interesting article over at Infoworld by Jon Udell about other ways of "displaying" and accessing information sources.

I think the idea of the bird's chirping is really neat. It would be nice to be able to get knowledge about systems rather than looking at logs, watching top, waiting for SNMP traps, etc. As I am someone who has music going all day, I wonder if this could translate some of this in to the music I listen to. Basically have nice quiet calm songs on when things are working well and then have it switch to some other (heavy metal, angry music, etc) as the system gets bad. Could be an interesting little project to build. I could think of having different categories for different types of music and then set limits on when you want the music to change. Maybe this could be my new project, as I have been looking for one for a while.

After a week of no cell phone (that's what happens when you don't pay your bills), I called and got my phone turned back on last night. Its nice to have it back and working again as I felt crippled without it. Now I need to get a new phone as the one I have is very broken. I'm trying to decide if I want to get a Palm phone. I think they are still too big and it will be too bulky to handle. I am also considering switching to Nextel, but after a quick check, I see I have a contract with Sprint until May. So, its either get a new Sprint phone and think about switching in May or else wait until May and then get a new phone and plane. Something I will have to think about. I think it will be option a, as I REALLY need a new phone, but who knows.

So, I took one of my sister's cats home with me. She cried for the whole ride out to the ferry. She really did not like being in the carrying case and moving in a car. She calmed down on the ferry and was fine for the ride from Conneticut to Boston. I figured once I got her in the house she would be jumping out of the case as quick as can be. Nope, she didn't want to come out. She's still in hiding under the TV stand right now. Hopefully she will calm down some and come out at some point. It would suck to have a cat who just hid under the TV all the time.

I found out while home this week that my sister's boss is going to the Dave Matthews show we are going to in a few weeks at MSG. His mother has access to an executive box. He has said he is going to get us in to the box for the show. This rocks, as my original tickets kind of sucked. Yay boss!