Version 0.20 of Straw, the GNOME 2 desktop news aggregator has been released. This is the aggregator I use on a daily basis and very much like. I've helped out pretty extensively on QA / bug work on this project, so its great to see a new and improved version. Hopefully, I am actually going to try and contribute some code to this thing very soon. Python is on the top of my list of things to learn right now and have been slowly trying to learn this code. So, go grab the new version and hopefully soon it will contain some code of mine.
October 2003 Archives
I have a ton of movies between my TiVo and DVDs from Netflix. Hoping to get some (well, all) of them watched this weekend. The movie list is:
- Murder by Numbers
- Commando
- Charlie's Angels - Full Throttle (Special Unrated Widescreen Edition)
- Adaptation (Superbit Collection)
- Catch Me If You Can (Widescreen Edition)
- City by the Sea (Widescreen Edition)
- Heist
- Brian's Song
- Gov't Mule - Rising Low
Those are just the ones available now, by Sunday, I'm going to have about 5 more. Fun Fun. Hope the couch stays comfortable :)
Oh goodie. I'm not a huge fan of Halloween. Actually, I pretty much can't stand it. I'm way too self-conscious for Halloween. I am not good at making a fool of myself and Halloween is all about making a fool of yourself.
At least the kids are going to have a nice night to trick-or-treat. It's in the mid-60s and sunny out.
I almost posted yesterday about how I could not understand how people waited a whole summer between seasons two and three of the West Wing. I saw the last episode of season two last night which ended in the President giving his speec after disclosing he has MS. It was an amazing episode and left with a wonderful cliffhanger. I just wanted to fast forward 24 hours so I could see the next episode (which are playing on Bravo). Well, tonight, as soon as I was about 20 minutes in to the show, I started it up, so I could fast forward through the commercials. One problem. Between season 2 and season 3 of the West Wing, 9/11 happened. Well, because of that, the first episode of the West Wing was a special episode about terrorism and things. So, now, I have to wait another 24 hours before I can end the hanging cliff. No fun.
Yanks-Marlins Series third-lowest rated ever
Wow, I'm shocked, amazed, surprised. Oh wait, no I'm not, not a soul had any cares about this series.
Little surprise: Red Sox fire Grady as manager
According to the AP, Gady is gone, official news conference supposedly at 3. And the crowd goes wild.
Scariest part of the article:
"Monday's Boston Herald, citing a Red Sox source, reported that two candidates to succeed Little could be former Indians manager Charlie Manuel and former Red Sox second baseman Jerry Remy, a television analyst for NESN, a regional sports network partly owned by the Red Sox."
I like Remy and all and think he does a grat job of color commentary and always has some great insights on the Sox, but as a manager, I'm not sure it would work. Imagine him bringing Wally to the mound to have a talk with Pedro? That just plain scares me.
Fox News Threatened to Sue The Simpsons
First off, can Fox news please calm down? Do they think they are SCO or something and can just sue everyone around them to make money?
Second, I find it just hilarious that Fox News would sue a Fox TV show. Isn't that just like transferring funds from one person's budget to another's? Ridiculous.
Third, my favorite part of the article:
"The Fox News Network did back down on its threat, although it has told The Simpsons creators that in the future, cartoon series will not be allowed to include a "news crawl" along the bottom of the screen, which might "confuse the viewers.""
Can someone please explain to me who would be confused when they saw cartoon characters doing the news and think it was the actual news? Are there people out there who are really this dumb?
$47b Fleet sale expected today
Oh goodie! In the 10 years I have lived in Boston, I have used one bank. In that time, this will be the fourth time that bank has been bought and I have to get a new ATM card. Now, I have never had much good to say about Fleet, so I am hoping this will be a change for the better and not for the worse. Anyone out there use Bank of America (the bank buying Fleet) and have any opinions?
I have two worries. The first is problems with direct deposit due to the the bank change. This hasn't bothered me in the past, but you never know. The second is I worry about online banking. Fleet's online banking rocks. I have used it for a long long time and really enjoy using it and really don't want to lose anything from it. Hopefully, the BoA service is just as good.
So, now I think back. I started out with BayBank. They were outside the dorms when I moved up here for school. They then went and merged with Bank of Boston, to form BankBoston. Then, Fleet bought BankBoston. Now, Fleet gets bought by Bank of America. Oh, the fun. The one semi-nice thing is I have a credit card with Bank of America and hopefully now I will be able to easily access that account through one interface.
Well, here we go again!
The biggest problem I have found so far is that I have to do too much work. Many people after reading that are probably saying I am crazy, but wait, I will prove this. Yes, TiVo is great for things like Season Passes and Wishlists and things like that, works perfectly. The problem is when I want to record something that doesn't fall under those two categories.
Let's say I see a movie I want to see. What I feel is the correct way for it to work is this. I find the movie using a search and say record this movie. It then tells me, a) Yup, going to record! or b) I can't record that, every opportunity conflicts. If every conflicts, then I figure out what I am going to cancel. The best way for me to do this would be to show me all the possibilities and what will be cancelled on one page. That would make it quick and easy for me to determine what I feel I can miss and can go right ahead and say go and be done.
The problem is that isn't the way it works today. The way it works today is I find a movie, tell it to record the next possible showing, it then tells me it conflicts. I then go back, and go to the upcoming showings list and try and figure out which one is best for me. I have a vague idea of when my TiVo records things, so I take a stab. If there are conflicts with that one, I back up and go through the process again. Now, if a movie (like something new to a channel) is showing 10 times over the next 2 weeks (the amount of data the TiVo stores at once) I could end up going through this process for a long time. The end result could be, I don't have any available times. Now, after already spending 10 minutes going through each of these settings, I have to go BACK through them to find the one which is the least bothersome to the things I really want to see. In the end, I could see myself taking up to 20 or more minutes just to record one movie. Rather obnoxious.
So, TiVo, PLEASE make this easier. This is really the one feature of the TiVo which I really don't like and the solution is rather easy.
MTV, well, at least this weekend, and maybe always, is not good about descriptions of its shows. This weekend Punk'd was on all the time, since the season premiere was tonight. Well, instead of each episode just said "Practical jokes played on celebrities" or something like that. So, what happened? TiVo taped every single one of them. At points I had 2 and maybe even 3 copies of the same episode saved on the TiVo. Very annoying. So, MTV, if you are listening, ALWAYS send full information out, so that us TiVo users can not overflow our hard drives with the same episode of one of your shows. And while you are at it? Start your damn shows on time. Very annoying to miss the last few minutes of a show because MTV decided to start at 8:33 instead of 8:30.
So, last weekend, I was bored and wanting some TV to watch and saw my TiVo really had nothing going on on Saturday or Sunday. Just some stuff at night, but was pretty much staying idle during the day. I figured this was something I should look in to. Maybe I could find some interesting stuff that was on on the weekends.
Since I watch a lot of "normal" TV type shows, I decided I wanted to find more documentaries and things like that. Shows that actually might stimulate my brain rather than just slow it down and allow it to lie idle.
I found a number of shows from channels like The History Channel, Discovery Channel, TechTV, etc. Some things like Modern Marvels, History's Mysteries, random specials, etc.
The side effect of this is the TiVo now is chock full of stuff like this. These shows are on a lot. Late at night, on the weekends, mid-day, etc. Now, this stuff is interesting, but at this point I am suffering from overload. I'd like to use these shows to learn things and find out all sorts of new information. The problem? Watching these shows back to back to back to back is not the easiest thing. Also, these shows are hard to watch while doing other things and I am a great multi-tasker and hardly ever just watch TV without at least having the computer going in the background (like Lyon's Den is on right now).
The one nice part? Since these shows are all in my Season Pass list now, anything that is not a one time special, I can skip, and sometime after 28 days from now, it will pick the show up again and I can watch it then. This is definitely an excellent feature of TiVo.
As it was getting in to the evening hours last night, I decided on what I was going to do for the evening and set out to finish some things before heading there. At some point over the course of this time, I remembered that the possible last game of the World Series was going on, but at the time, I was planning on getting to the bar around 10, which should have left me plenty of time to hopefully catch the Yankees lose. Well, as I always do, I took my time getting ready and getting out the door. I got in to Fanueil Hall around 10:45 and probably walked in to the packed bar around 10:50 or so. The first thing I noticed? The whole bar way paying attention to the TV. I glanced up to see 2-0, bottom 9th, 1 out. As I watched, the outfielder made a catch and now the Yankees were down to their final out. Moments later, as I got my drink and settled in, a slow dribbler down the first base line ended the game. The bar erupted, high fives all around, "Yankees Suck" chants beginning. It was almost like we were all in Florida.
But, no, it was Boston. The Nation felt it at least got some revenge with the Yankees falling to the Marlins. Usually if my team gets knocked out of the playoffs in a sport, I end up cheering for the team that beat them, because I liked to be able to at least say we lost to the best. Well, obviously not this year :) And, in the end, the only ones who beat the Sox were the Sox (and most say Grady Little), so there really was no need to cheer the Yankees. I doubt there ever will be a time to cheer for the Yankees.
Well, my good timing got me to start my evening out (the first time outside a 2 block radius of my apartment since Sunday due to illness) with a smile.
If you are in Europe and running Windows, you should grab The IDA Open Source Migration Guidelines.
Drooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool
Dave asks: What is there.com?
The opposite of here.com?
(sorry, had to do it, just what popped in to my head when I read it, didn't even look at the site. :)
Jesus actor struck by lightning
Hmmmmmmm. [ from Grant ]
I think I finally have found the downside to living alone. I have happily lived alone for 18+ months and everything has been great. No one to answer to, run around the house naked when I want, etc etc etc.
Well, the last 2 1/2 days I have been laid up VERY sick. It started Monday afternoon and got horrid yesterday to the point that I slept most of the day. The bad part? Well, a few. First, I had next to no food in the house, so no food means I can't eat as much as I should be, especially being sick. If I had a roommate, they could run to the store, get me food, get me Gatorade, etc etc etc. No roommate? Eat whatever I can find around the house, which is rather little. Secondly, I have been very weak. Moving for more than a minute kills me. Well, it has made cooking, getting drinks, going the bathroom, etc vey difficult. Having a roommate? They could make me food, pour me drinks and help me out in any way they could.
Though, I still love living alone, right now I wish I had a roommate to take care of me. I called my Mom yesterday, but she was unwilling to travel the 300 miles to take care of me :(
Update: I'm amazed no one said anything about the spelling :) Fixed.
Just a friendly reminder to all you TiVo users out there. Last week NBC cancelled West Wing (and possibly it's whole Wednesday night lineup) and all of its Thursday night lineup. The problem is, since it was a last minute change, according to TiVo, it has already recorded the shows that are actually on this week. So, what you need to do, is go in to your TiVo and tell it to specifically re-record these shows. Just a heads up!
SCO fined $10,800 for Linux claims
Yay! Can they get fined this much each day for being pains in the ass with their claims?
Well, now that I have started down the road of making Movable Type a CMS (content management system) by making the reading list in MT, I am wondering if I should just move all the other pages that are part of this site in to MT. It would make it a bit easier as I would be able to make changes from the web easily, have it rebuild certain pages based on changes to the blog, etc. Plus, it would give me a standard interface to editing pages.
So, anyone who has done this, has this been helpful to you or am I better staying in my Xemacs and SCP environment?
My second project of the day was a combination project. My buddy CMS recently got MTAmazon working correctly and sent me some information on how to do it, which I had promptly kept in my Inbox and done nothing with.
This morning, while talking to CMS, he said he was trying to get a reading list working and was having trouble. I figured this would be a good opportunity to help a friend, as well as get this working myself. I spent a bit getting everything going and slowly learning about Macros in MT, until I got the plugin working correctly for normal posts. Once I got this done, it was on to helping figure out how to get this to work without MT entries. After a little searching of the documentation, I found the MTMacroApply tag. Once this got turned on, things got somewhat better, but still were not working 100%. I saw that the macro we were using required something that was not always going to be there, so I added another macro to not need that and was off to the races.
The end result? I now have a reading list on the site. It can be found here.
So, this morning I decided to do some searching on the Net for TiVo Home Media Service for Linux. I figured I should be at least able to find something. Initially I found a page which looked promising, but after looking around some, I saw no work had been done for more than 4 months and that the initial files were never fully realeased. I e-mailed the author and moved on.
Next, I decided to check SourceForge and I found a number of things on TiVo. The one that best fit what I was looking for was byRequest TiVo HMO Server. I compiled it, set up the configuration file and let it go. And now I am able to play the TONs of MP3s I have on my laptop on my TiVo. Now, this doesn't sound all that amazing, BUT, my TiVo is hooked up to my home theater system, which means I can now play anything I have on MP3 on the Home Theater system. Now, that is sweet.
So, anyone else looking to get this working should definitely check out this project.
I actually finished this a few weeks ago, but now that I got MTAmazon working, I thought I would try it out. This was a very interesting book. It was a combination of a history of baseball statistics and a look at how Billy Beane got a team to the playoffs 3 years in a row on a budget of next to nothing. It also profiled some players who have turned out much better than expected by old school stats. I would definitely say this is a book geared towards people who are fans of baseball and follow it at least to some degree. I really enjoyed the read, as it was a quick and easy read, but also interesting.
Two amusing points. After reading this book, i got a kick out of how many of the A's players I knew from the book when watching the Red Sox / A's playoff series. Second, looking at the 2003 stats, the A's didn't do all that well in either walks or OBP or OPS even though this was the stat that was so touted as what the A's looked for according to this book.
Pioneer Electronics - DVD recorders with TiVo - Home
My TiVo just told me all about these. They look freakin sweet. Too bad I don't have $1200 (80 hour) or $1800 (120 hour) laying around to buy one. This would totally complete the TiVo experience for me. I love having it, but how cool would it be to burn off a disc of movies or a discs with whole seasons of shows?
Also, right now I just set up to tape a whole ton of movies over the next week (cleaned my Netflix list of everything that was available on cable) and if I start to run low on space, it would be great to be able to just throw some movies on DVD for a later time.
Now, the real question. What does the MPAA think of this? I would have to assume they are not liking DVD burners in the first place and probably liking it even less that now it is a snap to go from cable right to DVD with a nice interface and all. Though, with the current level of expense that these things are, only hard core video enthusiasts and the all too rich will have these for now, so I guess its not a huge threat just yet, but I would think these things will shoot down in price pretty quickly.
but, it's still nice to see the Islanders in first and the Rangers in last. (yes, my hockey allegiances are all pretty much still NY, thought I do follow the B's).
Anyone seen these? Money is starting to look faker and faker by the day :)
Actually, the new twenty dollar bill looks much more like European money. Lots of colors and stuff. It also feels very fake. Not sure if that is because its all brand new right now or if it just feels different.
The other thing I was thinking of the other day is how quickly the last new twenty, which is now pretty much the standard replaced all the old 20s. I actually got one from a money machine a couple of weeks ago and realized I hadn't seen one in a while. I wonder if this new 20 will become the norm just as quickly.
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Studio plans movie based on Cubs fan's now-famous blunder - Oct. 16, 2003
When did the Onion writers start writing for CNN? You HAVE to be kidding me.
Just so everyone knows, Cheyenne is planning on moving to Boston, as soon as she can get all her finances together. This has been a big secret for a while, but she says I won't post it, so here it is. Halley said something in her Chey's comments the other day, but obviously noone has read them, so now I will let the cat out of the bag.
Good morning, Mr Garciaparra, how was your fall nap? Good to see you awake again.
Finally the bats come alive tonight.
I think I am starting to see a trend here, we have one bad inning per game and that's about it. That one inning almost killed us, luckily the Sox were gelling nicely tonight and got some runs in.
I really don't know if I can watch tomorrow's game though. My nerves are already rather shot and a game 7 is just gonna be scary from beginning to end.
There is a Yankee fan, a Red Sox fan, a Marlins fan and a Cubs fan climbing up to the top of a mountain talking about how loyal they are to their team and how they would do anything for them.
Once they reach the top of the mountain the Marlins fan screams, "THIS IS FOR THE MARLINS" and jumps off.
The Cubs fan screams "THIS IS FOR THE CUBS," and he, too, jumps off of the mountain.
Finally the Red Sox fan screams, "THIS IS FOR EVERYONE" and pushes the Yankee fan off!!
CNN.com - Concert-goers riot after show canceled - Oct. 15, 2003
Why do Canadians always riot when shows are cancelled?
Six Apart, makers of Movable Type (which powers this blog) and TypePad have some job openings. If I weren't so happy in my current position (and wasn't 3000 miles away), I would totally be applying for the developer job.
It just amazes me how intolerant of commercials I have become by having a TiVo. I used to never mind commercials, I used them to throw food in the oven or make a phone call or even practice some guitar. Now, watching live TV (like the Sox games this week), I just want to hit fast forward and get past the commercials.
I just want content, nothing else. I think the Internet and the fast pace of it, along with the amazing amounts of content on demand has changed the way people think. I don't think people have fully accepted TiVo yet, but I think when they do, they will realize how different an experience TV becomes. I was a horrible channel flipper. I also was the king of watching random crap on TV, even if it was a movie I had seen 100 times, just to have the damn thing on in the background or to keep me occupied. Now that I have TiVo, I just have the content I want, always available to me at the pace I want. If I want to doze off in the middle of a show, I just rewind back to where I was. If I get a call and need to head out, I hit pause and come back later. It's pure content on demand. It is much like the web in this respect.
I sometimes think about how people got things done without the Intenet. I actually mentioned this to Chey right before last time I came out. How did people get the weather for a business trip before? They would have to look things up in the paper, which probably didn't have much of an extended forecast. Or else they would have to know someone where they were going. I somehow think that business people don't have friends in every city they travel too. Now? I just go to Weather.com or Weather Underground.
I guess it's just funny how you can get used to certain things and they can adjust how you think about things without you actually realizing it.
What the children of Boston think of the Yankees:
Wired News: Wanted: Master Lego Model Builder
According to the official requirements, the "role of the master builder exists to offer design, build, repair and service functions to all models and animated features within LegoLand California and selected external locations."Who are they kidding?
"You get to play with toys for a living," summed up LegoLand spokeswoman Stacey Slingerland. "It's the greatest job in the entire world."
This sounds like way too much fun.
Server will probably be slow overnight and possibly most of the day tomorrow. Someone over at Gentoo got bored today and updated just about every package they have and the server will be doing lots of re-compiling for a while.
Update: Doh! I just figured out what I did. I caused this myself. While trying to get Mailman working earlier, I un-masked all the un-stable, but not yet approved stuff. Just re-masked everything and now I have nothing to update. Whew! No more slow server.
The Red Sox tied up the series tonight. Very nice. Being able to have Waker pitch was most excellent. I am going to scare myself by saying this, but, the Sox pitching looked real good tonight.
Not sure what happened with that one base running snafu, but other than that, the Sox looked ok. Still trying to figure out where the bats that we had hot all season are.
Specifically, can someone PLEASE go find Nomar, tell him to stop thinking about the wedding and CONCENTRATE on baseball for a bit? He's looked like crap for over a month and it is getting somewhat annoying. He's almost turned in to an automatic out. The other one someone can try and wake up is that batting champion of ours.
I'm trying to think if I am going to head to work super early tomorrow, so I can be home by 4 to watch the game or if I am just going to stay at work late and listen to the game. Tough decision, since I hate waking early, but it may have to be done. It's not like I am going to get any work done after the game starts.
Since Jason put the new BlogRolling code in to place this weekend, I decided to try it out and see if the OPML import function was working now (since it was broken in the previous implementation. Well, I am happy to report that it does! (well, one does, one doesn't, still need to bug this). So, now the Blog Roll on the right hand side of the main page is powered by BlogRolling.
The police report sure seems to say it was the Yankees, not the Fenway employee.
The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century :: Last Sunday in Boston
I will not confirm nor deny any statements made in his post. I will say that anyone who may have groped me may not have had any recollection of said groping the next time I saw her.
I want to watch the Red Sox today!
It's gross in Boston right now. The football game (which is causing me much pain due to the Giants and the Patriots playing each other) is still going, but I am starting to think the Yankees/Sox game this evening may be in jeopardy.
At least I have a day off tomorrow for Columbus Day, so if there is a double header I can sit and watch both games.
I added James's Solution for comments spams on to the site this morning. Hopefully it will block the Spam Bots for now.
Baiting? Well, as I said, that's what I thought. But, the police are saying maybe assault. Big Fat Warning: This page has crashed two browsers on me. From the article:
Boston police may charge Yankees with assaultPolice spokesman Michael McCarthy didn't release the names of the two players.
However, Red Sox spokesperson Charles Steinberg identified Jeff Nelson and Karim Garcia as the Yankees involved.
McCarthy says a man who was seen in the bullpen in the ninth inning of the Yankees 4-3 playoff win over the Red Sox was a Fenway Park employee and that he was the victim of the assault."The Red Sox are terribly concerned and distressed about the attack on our employee tonight," Steinberg said.
The Yankees denied the players were to blame in the fight with Paul Williams, a member of the ballpark's grounds crew.
"A security incident like this would never be tolerated at Yankee Stadium," president Randy Levine told AP.
"Unfortunately, there was an atmosphere of lawlessness that was allowed to be perpetrated all day long," said Levine. "The events of the entire day were disgraceful and shameful, and if it happened at our ballpark, we would apologize, and that's what the Red Sox should do here."
New York reliever Jeff Nelson fought with the Fenway Park employee in the Yankees' bullpen in the ninth inning of the AL championship series Saturday night.
With tempers already high following a bench-clearing melee earlier in the game, Nelson took exception to Paul Williams, who was waving a white flag in the bullpen in the ninth inning. The reliever told Williams he didn't like it, and the two started to fight.
There's more there, but that's a bunch of it.
Well, at least its 2-1. Sox looked good and bad all night long. Clutch hitting early and then forgot how to clutch hit. How annoying.
I am hating the Fox announcers more and more by the minute. I love how they yelled at Pedro for 5 minutes until they actually WATCHED the clip once more and realized the fuckin 72 year old idiot charged at Pedro swinging.
And, once and for all, Pedro hit him in the BAT, not the back, the BAT. It never touched his body. Watch the clip, it never touches him. Definitely intentional, my ass.
Oh, and the employee of Fenway getting involved with the Yankees, somehow I think there may have been a bit of baiting there.
LWN: Egenera's blades are blooming (Register)
They are showing up in my aggregator every day now! This article on LWN points to Egenera's blades are blooming over at The Register.
Got a whole bunch of these in my Inbox this morning:
Important notice
We have just charged your credit card for money laundry service in amount of $234.65 (because you are either child pornography webmaster or deal with dirty money, which require us to layndry them and then send to your checking account). If you feel this transaction was made by our mistake, please press "No".If you confirm this transaction, please press "Yes" and fill in the form below.
Enter your credit card number here:
Enter your credit card expiration date:
And below each of the two questions were boxes for me to fill in my credit card number and expiration date. Now, why would I have to do that, since they claim to have already charged my credit card? The funnier part to me? If you are going to try to scam me at least spell everything correctly!. Check out the spelling of laundry the second time they use it.
This is post seven hundred. Scary.
My friend Brian Wherry made an entry for the Dream Theater Songwriting Contest and has made it available online. I listened last night and was (and still am) totally blown away. Everyone should check it out here.
Uniform of the Day: Red Sox With Togas
A decent article about the Red Sox from the Washington Post. My favorite line:
"We've got a bunch of idiots in here who [just] go out and play baseball," Boston third baseman Kevin Millar, the self-appointed lead idiot, told reporters here on Monday.
Just got this in my Inbox:
Twas the night to beat Yankees
And all through the nation
Not a single sole was thinkin
Of 85 years of damnation....
Cuz this is the year
To end our bad luck
And even if it werent
The YANKEES STILL SUCK!!!
On Damon! On Nixon! On Manny and Nom-ah!
On V-tek! On Walker! On Ortiz and Mill-ah!
Carry this team and end this damned curse
Don't blow the game or you'll leave town in a hearse!
To the TRUE fans of BOSTON
Get a beer and a cup
And say it together
COWBOY UP!!!
AOL buys Egenera blade servers
More news about my company in my aggregator.
Scott point out a new Feedster feature, comment spam reporting.
Scott has the first part implemented in that you can now report IP addresses that spam your blog. The next piece is going to be an API of some sort to allow people to check against the DB when someone actually posts a comment.
My one small problem? What if a vindictive person deicdes they don't like someone who is commenting on their blog and starts adding them to the database and gives a legitimate person whom someone doesn't like a bad rep? I would say there needs to be some level of a once per user or something protection, so that a person can not get blacklisted due to dislike.
Otherwise, cool service, will have to remember to use it if I ever start getting comment spam, which I would assume will start happening sooner or later as more and more people are linking to me these days.
Oh come on now, just because the traffic information signs on the Mass Pike are alternating between:
GO RED SOX
and
COWBOY UP
does not mean the whole town is overly obsessed with the Red Sox. I swear, we aren't, no really, come on, believe me, we aren't ;)
Oh yeah, GO SOX!
RollingStone.com: News: Matthews Takes Friends on Tour
Now this is freakin cool. Dave, Tim and TREY! This is a must not miss.
Dave Matthews and Friends tour dates:
12/12: University Park, PA, Bryce Jordan Center
12/13: Providence, RI, Dunkin Donuts Center
12/15: Philadelphia, Wachovia Center
12/16: Boston, FleetCenter
12/17: New York, Madison Square Garden
12/19: Hartford, CT, Hartford Civic Center
12/20: Rochester, NY, Blue Cross Arena
12/22: Rosemont, IL, Allstate Arena
1/12: Seattle, Key Arena
1/14: San Diego, Cox Arena
1/15: Los Angeles, Staples Center
1/16: Oakland, Oakland Arena
Egenera releases new blade servers | CNET News.com
Always fun to be reading through my aggregator and see news about the company I work at.
I'm broken right now.
My nerves are shot from the Sox game.
I've had too much caffeine, so I am all wired.
I have eaten way way way too little today, so I am strung out.
And now I am supposed to sleep? Eek, this is going to be difficult.
I find it amusing that Dave is now saying to Cool to the Red Sox victory.
I said something to him last night about being a Sox fan, but that I am also still a Mets fan (as I was born and raised in NY). I have become a Sox fan by spending 10 years up here and following the team. Dave said I wasn't allowed. I said sure I was, one was American League and one was National League, so it worked on the few occasions that they played each other.
Well, Dave's cool comment makes me think he may be slowly coming to go through the same thing I went through. Basically, the concept of living where your team isn't (especially a team like the Sox aka the Heart Attack kids) and slowly getting sucked in.
All I warn anyone who hasn't lived here long about is what will happen to this city if the Sox somehow win the World Series.
Now, that's funny from Only a Game.
This actually happening is exactly what I don't want happening because I fear this will come true.
OK, so they could have possibly made that a little more tense, right? Lilke getting the count to 3-2 and bringing Kim in? Would that have helped build some more tension?
Holy shit! What a great game. Manny, who has been rather quiet in this series, with the big 3 run blast was a nice touch. The A's slowly coming back was completely unnecessary. The bases being loaded in the 9th was also unnecessary. DLowe pulling off some wonderful pitching was very nice to see.
Scariest part of the game was most definitely the collision in the outfield. Seeing Damon wave to the crowd as he got in the ambulance was comforting.
I don't enjoy the fox announcers much. Taking exception to Manny walking down the first base line was annoying. He knew it was gone, he has done it before.
So, off to NY we go. I would have to say we have a ton of momentum, so hopefully we can carry it in. First game is Wednesday, I think. May have to hit the bars, cuz Jillian's looked like a ball on TV tonight.
So once again, I say, GO SOX!
SOX WIN SOX WIN SOX WIN SOX WIN SOX WIN SOX WIN SOX WIN SOX WIN!
Thanks to Boss Ross for the pic.
I've been reading a lot about e-mail being broken. I think people who are claiming this, either don't have the right tools or else are not using them correctly. I have no problems at all with my e-mail. I get a few thousand e-mails a day. Most come from mailing lists, other personal mail, and then random other mails. A combination of procmail and Spam Assassin keep my mail well organized. Just about all my mailing lists are thrown in to folders, all the spam is removed in to a spam folder, and anything else ends up in my Inbox.
I probably get 200-300 spam e-mails a day. Probably 5-10 of those end up in my Inbox. This means that 95% of spam is being correctly identified by Spam Assassin. Between the rules provided by the tool and then adding in the Bayesian filters, it gets just about everything and is constantly learning more and more, so if a rash of a new kind of spam comes out, it quickly learns about it and starts filtering it out. The last ugly Outlook caused virus didn't even affect me. Spam Assassin caught all of them and I never saw one of them.
So, is e-mail dead? Hell no. Would it be nice to have more ways to identify people, definitely. Would it be nice if spam went away? Of course. But, e-mail is a great way to communicate. It also is a great way to start to talk to people. I have sent e-mail to people I hardly know and started conversations with them.
So, in the end, I think people really need to learn the tools that are available to them and start using them better. I think that will make e-mail much more usable. The other thing? People need to stop clicking on links in spam messages. Everyone seems to hate spam, but some people are still clicking or else they would at some point stop sending them or at least slow down.
Leo just said this on the West Wing and I liked it:
A man was in a hole and couldn't get out.
A doctor walked by, the man yelled up, can you help me out? The doctor wrote a presciption and threw it in the hole.
A priest came walking by, the man yelled up, can you help me out? The priest wrote a prayer on a piece of paper and threw it in the hole.
Finally, a friend came walking by, the man yelled up, hey Joe, can you help me out? The friend jumped in the hole. The man said what are you doing? Now we are both in the hole. The friend said yes, but I've been in this hole before and I know the way out of the hole.
Special Extended Edition Screening Engagement
Tuesday, December 16
One-time-only marathon of both the Extended Edition prints followed by the first screenings of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
Well, now I know where I will be spending December 16th. How many hours is this? 2 1/2 by 3? 7 1/2 hours? Sounds like a whole day kind of thing.
And two days later, I continue to say Go Sox!
Saw much of Friday's game. CB actually had to wait for the game to end to go on, so we were all sitting around watching. Nice heroics by Trot.
I missed yesterday due to BloggerCon and being without WiFi, I wasn't even able to follow on MLB Gameday. Sounds like it was a lot of fun though.
Tonight is what it's all about. The Cubs are already in, so the Sox at LEAST have to do that good. So, it's still do or die and I'm still screamin
GO SOX!
So, headed over to BloggerCon yesterday for the free Day 2. Was lots of fun. Will have some more stuff up on that later.
Post wrap-up, a number of us, including Dave, Doc, Joey, Boss Ross, AKMA, Si, Jim, Phil, Wendy, Britt and some others headed out for some coffee and continued talk. Some talked, Joey played some Accordion, some danced. Was a good time. Was nice getting to meet and talk to more people than I had had a chance to during the sessions.
After hanging out for a while, a bunch of us headed over to have some dinner. Dinner was fun. Sat next to Dave and got to talk with him a bunch. Lots of good discussion around the table. Lots of talk about politics and weblog.
Dave and I still disagree on how aggregators should work. He likes an aggregator that takes everything and shows it all off in one long list. I still like the 3 pane approach. Though, I do feel that if I could do categories and then have groupings of posts I would be more inclined to read the way Dave does. I need to hack my aggregator so it can do this.
After dinner, Joey and I headed to downtown Boston for some hijinx and some accordion fun. We first went to Sissys to see Greg play. Joey got up and jammed a few tunes with him (pictures coming to Joey's site soon). They played Squeezebox and something else. After that we went over to Clarke's to see Chad and Stu play. Yet again, Joey jumped right up on stage and played a few songs with them. Was a great time and we closed out the bars.
Here, sitting in Joi's talk. Left my wifi card at home, don't ask. Writing some things down in a wiki right now, will try and post things up later.
and all I can say is
Go Sox!
God damn! It's cold! I woke up and my computer said it was 43 degrees outside. I actually had to turn the heat on. Scary, I usually can hold off on that until like the middle of this month or even November. Folks coming to BloggerCon better bring some sweaters.
SGI's letter to the Linux Community:
SCO's references to XFS are completely misplaced. XFS is an innovative SGI- created work. It is not a derivative work of System V in any sense, and SGI has full rights to license it to whomever we choose and to contribute it to open source. It may be that SCO is taking the position that merely because XFS is also distributed along with IRIX it is somehow subject to the System V license. But if so, this is an absurd position, with no basis either in the license or in common sense. In fact, our UNIX license clearly provides that SGI retains ownership and all rights as to all code that was not part of AT&Ts UNIX System V.
That's my favorite part. Even more peopel calling SCO absurd. :)
Hmm, I guess I will have to take a pic of the cat. Maybe I will take a pic of her playing with her favorite new toy. It was designed specifically for her to play with and she is enjoying it very much. It's called "Crushed up for the garbage aluminum foil which missed the garbage bag and is now a favorite toy of the cat's"
I swear, anything she can push, she loves, her new thing is knocking loose change off of the counter and knocking it around the hall. But, this ball of tinfoil really got her going last night. Back and forth, up and down the halls, while I watched the horror show called the ALDS featuring the Red Sox and A's.
Dave is asking people to let him know if they are travelling to BloggerCon.
I ask this. Does taking the T from Boston to Cambridge count as travel? :)
is the understatement of the day. I have come very close to just curling up under my desk at this point. Red Sox went to 12, lost on a bunt, A BUNT, ugh. Not pleased, half asleep, just waiting for Game 2 to start in a few hours. Knowing the Red Sox they will win this one 17-0. They are very good at getting runs when they dont' need them.
Sox definitely did not play their game last night. They are usually VERY good at clutch hitting, but then Manny goes and leaves 5 guys on base. That's a lack of clutch hitting if I ever heard one.
Big props to Pedro for going 7 and throwing 130 pitches, hopefully he didn't push himself too hard.
ESPN announcers:
"There are gonna be a lot of bleary eyes in offices in the city of Boston tommorrow"
I will be one of them. Fuckin Red Sox.
Yahoo asks How many vacation days has George W. Bush taken to date as president?
Keep up that hard work, George!
Wow, this is a sweet prize pack. Though, I am not really sure what I would do with a riding lawnmower or a gas grill in my little apartment. The rest of the stuff would be a blast though.
