Posts from — July 2002

Lord of the Rings is coming to DVD next week. But there is another version, the extended version with 30 minutes of extra footage, coming November 12th. You may consider waiting for the longer version. That’s what I’m going to do.

If you are broke, don’t give me financial advice. If you are overweight, don’t advise me how to diet. If you’ve been involved in multiple car accidents and have received numerous tickets, don’t tell me how to drive. But here’s my advice: shut up.

Close your mouth while you are sitting there. It makes you look stupid, you mouthbreather.

Mailwasher manages your mail BEFORE it arrives in your inbox. If spam does get through, you have the option of bouncing back to the sender. I like it. It doesn’t work with any web-based mail like Yahoo! or Hotmail.

I don’t know anyone who likes spam. Then why are these scumbags permitted to clog our inboxes with this garbage. It should be a federal crime to be a spammer.

If I tell you how to pronounce Sirius then BELIEVE ME. Just because you have trouble formulating sentences doesn’t mean that I do. I have been an amateur astronomer for a long time. Everybody in astronomy knows how to pronounce the name of the North star (or Dog Star), Sirius. You don’t have to confirm what I told you with someone else. Just read the word, carefully. Sound it out…That’s good. Thank you.

Several parody sites exist on the web. My all-time favorite is The Onion. But have you also tried Satirewire or The Drudge Report? Then there’s Landover Baptist, a site that pokes fun at the religious community and I’m sure offends a whole lot of people.

Did you hear about that asteroid due to hit the earth in 17 years? Now they are saying it will miss us. But they don’t rule out future collisions. That’s very scary.

With the reinstall of my system, I decided to stop using Yahoo! Instant Messenger and instead use Trillian. It allows you to connect to all the major IM services in one window. If you have friends on AOL, ICQ, MSN or Yahoo! Trillian is an excellent choice.

I also wanted to spruce up my wallpaper files with some new images so naturally I thought of Xanthic. They have some of the coolest wallpaper and icons on the net. They even tell you how they made some of the images so you can create them yourself.

Beef. It’s what’s for dinner. We got a coupon for Mountain Jacks so we’re going there tonight. It’s been years since we’ve dined there. The last time I got irritated because they stopped giving you their portable salad bar on the table for you to serve yourself. Now you have to tell the waiter what you want and they serve you. I didn’t like that so we stopped going.

We’re watching the Trading Spaces weekend marathon on The Learning Channel. Two couples “swap spaces” and redecorate a room. They have $1000 and 48 hours to do it. With the help of a carpenter and a decorator, they really come up with some interesting rooms. The best part comes at the end when you see their reactions to their new room.

I had enough of my slow computer so I formatted the hard drive and reinstalled Windows XP. Now it’s blazingly fast. Just like it should. Yeah, baby.

Did you notice that cars are always tailgating you? Do you wonder why everyone is passing you on the road? It’s because you are a freakin’ slowpoke. Get out of the way and off the road. If the speed limit is ___, then drive that fast. 5 MPH over is an even better idea. If you drive a little faster, I’ll forgive you for not using your blinker - - NOT.

A lot of people I know don’t need this, they create enough on their own. For you others, here’s a BS Generator.

I don’t feel like going in tomorrow, I’ll be “working” from home if you need me.

This image and more at Dribbleglass.com.

In a ranking of all web pages, mine is listed at number 3,492,880. Check it out. 3.4 million is better than nothing.

The demise of newsgroup access through Comcast and the meager 1 GB download limit they offer from a third party steams me. Last week I joined Easynews. They give me 6 GB of downloads for ten bucks a month. Their system is fast and well-organized. The images are indexed for very easy downloading and it includes all the latest decoding software built in. Very nice. Now I can download stuff without having to worry about any limits.

I talked about Blinkenlights before in my weblog but its worth mentioning again. It’s about a building in Germany that has computer-controlled lights where different designs can be displayed from the windows. They’ve vastly improved the system and now you can even play pong via your cellphone right on the freakin’ building. Check the website for something really clever and entertaining. The site is brought to you by the famous Chaos Computer Club.

If you want to “hear” what Frontsideback sounds like, go to Webplayer. This site creates music from some algorithm found in the code of your web page. The sound created from FSB’s code is nice and soothing. It makes “good music to watch URL’s by.”

I’ve been doing a lot of photo-surfing at Photo.net. Great site, lots to offer, worth a look.

Noah Grey (of Greymatter blogging tool fame) has a very good photo site. I am very impressed with his work each time I visit the site.

Balloon Festival.

We went to a hot air balloon festival on Saturday. More about it later when I get the pictures developed. I forgot to take my digital camera so we have to wait until the film is developed. How quaint. We are pictured on the Official 2002 Hot Air Jubilee web site. The picture shows us relaxing next to the trailer waiting for the event to begin.

The Gallery isn’t working. Several error messages have begun to pop up lately and now its preventing me from uploading any images. From a quick glance at the Gallery support page, I may need to upgrade to a newer version. I’ll investigate.

The Screen Savers listed their first programs they load on a fresh PC.
Leo’s picks:
Ultimate Zip - free unzip program
NoteTabPro - excellent Notepad replacement
Download Accelerator - speed up downloads
AVG Antivirus - free antivirus program
Proxomitron - eliminate popups

Sam Spade is an extremely useful tool to find information about others on the web. It contains a ton of helpful network tools like whois, dns and IP searching.

Thanks Dave for the information on using my VPN account. I got my VPN token some months ago but have never used it from home. A simple install of the connection software, then a click on my token to reveal the passcode and voila, I’m browsing the network at DCX.

The water restrictions around our area are getting worse. Not only can’t we water on odd days, on our even days we can’t water between 6 - 9 am/pm. I think its working though. The water pressure was almost normal this morning. Our backyard - “the hayfield” is so desperately in need of water that I’m afraid I may never get the grass back there green again. Still I shouldn’t complain. People in a nearby town were without water for 6 days.

The Detroit News had an article today about the water problems. Of all the communities in the area, ours and a few others were labeled “severe shortage areas.” It’s the damn over-developing the builders are doing. They are out of control. I think they should be made to stop building, let the infrastructure catch up and then CAREFULLY start building again. Greedy bastards.

Where are we going and what am I doing in this handbasket?

This entry is coming to you from my iPAQ while I’m sitting on the couch. Cool.

I got to drive a 2002 Dodge Viper again today. It’s great fun cruising around in that car. It’s even more fun watching the people trying to get a glimpse of the cool guy driving the car.

Don’t correct my grammar unless you are positive I am wrong.

I love this stuff: Tron Kubrick sets.

“Look up and share the wonders I see.” - John Crichton
Farscape keeps getting better and better.