Posts from — January 2004

I’m getting very sick of the local TV news around here. Their continual hype and self-promotion is driving me crazy. I watched the news last night and they had their storm team reports talking about the impending disaster that would be our morning commute. As is often the case, the conditions were not nearly as bad as they reported. If you ask them why they do this, they’ll say it’s out of concern for the community. They want us to be prepared for the worse. If you want to go something good for us, just report the facts and not spin them just to get better ratings. I’m sick of it.

They replaced all the fluorescent lights in the office. They are so bright I get blinded looking up at them. Crap.

I got a Blackberry last week, and it’s very cool. I get all my office email on the thing, plus my calendar, Yahoo mail and I can surf the Internet. I’m wondering how I got along without it.

UFO Evidence provides “in-depth, quality and scientific research on the UFO phenomenon.”

Human Descent Gallery is doing some strange things with Photoshop. Take a look.

Yesterday’s Office has some good links to antique office equipment. My favorite section is the one with the early calculators. I remember my first HP scientific calculator and how amazed I was with it.

“Believe it or not, only 17% of native English speakers can spell the following six words correctly:
Height, necessary, accommodation, seperate, sincerely, business

Which of those is spelt wrong? Yes, separate! Did you notice?
ENGLISH SPELLING IS A NIGHTMARE for many people…We have already started to CHANGE IT!” - from Freespelling.com

Right there with my old HP calculator were printouts from the campus Computer Lab with Ascii text banners. This site takes it a step farther.

I know at least 5 people here at work that when you ask them what time it is, they tell you how to build the clock. These blowhards can talk all day and not say anything.

When you see me looking around and not paying attention to you, that’s a good hint you should stop talking. I should just be rude and interrupt them in mid-sentence. After all, they are being rude to me by wasting my valuable time.

My new bumper sticker: “Some people just don’t know how to drive…
I call these people “Everybody But Me.”

Here’s another bumper sticker I would like: “No, I won’t fix your home computer.”

This just in, the first picture from Mars. (thanks Gary)

Geez where have I been? Well, I’m back. There’s a lot to cover so settle down and let’s get started.

The Mars Rover. How cool is it. The pictures coming in are fantastic. I’m glad they got it off the lander and it’s finally able to start roving.

It took me 2.5 hours to get home last night because of all the snow. I don’t want to talk about it, I’ll just get aggravated again. Well I’ll say one thing; if you’re driving in a bad snowstorm with slippery roads, DON’T FREAKIN TAILGATE ME. And brush off your damn car, all of it. The windows, brake lights, headlights, everything you lazy ass.

I just scheduled the TIVO to record a show, from work. They have a free trial for their home media option that lets you view images and listen to music from your PC. It also lets you “log into” your unit from the Internet and schedule shows. I believe Snapstream has done this all along and it even lets you stream video recorded shows to your computer from anywhere. Still I’m very happy with the TIVO.

Stargate is back with new episodes. Last Friday was the first and it was great.

We stayed in last night, it seems to be our tradition. It’s more enjoyable for Pam and I to stay home, have a good dinner and watch a video than to endure all of the crazy people out there.

For Christmas I got a new digital camera and photo printer. The printer has a convenient tray for 4×8 photo paper. The quality of the prints is fantastic, I’m very pleased with it. And I got it for only $99.

We also got a TiVo. Installation was difficult but now its working great. The video quality is outstanding and I have it attached to our wireless home network to download the program guides. People that have told me about TiVo were correct, it is changing the way I watch television.

Here are some weird pictures. The submissions are very good at merging the different life-forms together.