Is anyone out there going to Anime Boston 2003? I kinda wanna go, but I don't know how up I am for going if nobody else I know is going. I also don't know how much I'm interested in going to there. I'd probably find the most interesting things at the panels. I'd kind of like to check out the Dealers room. So in general it sounds like I'd like to be there during the one day. I'm just not a big con person, though I enjoy going a little.
January 2003 Archives
Voltaire. "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." [Quotes of the Day]
It seems that some parents are quite annoyed at Kangaroo Jack getting the rating it did and it being advertised on Nick Jr. Here's a bit of the story of How 'Jack' hopped away with a PG rating
The critics agree on another point: The PG-rated comedy, which revolves around two bumbling crooks trying to retrieve $50,000 in mob money from a kangaroo in the Australian Outback, is profoundly unsuitable for young kids. The Jerry Bruckheimer-produced movie includes a scene in which heat-dazed crooks Jerry O'Connell and Anthony Anderson spot supermodel Estella Warren, playing a wildlife conservationist, standing before them. As the Washington Post's Desson Howe describes it, "Thinking she's a mirage, [O'Connell] clamps both his hands on her breasts and declares, 'Hey, these feel so real!' " There's also a testicle joke, a wet tank-top scene with Warren under a waterfall, a chase sequence with shotgun fire and a scene where a villain puts a knife at O'Connell's throat and snarls, "I'm going to carve you up piece by piece."
Would it come as a shock if I told this you this movie has been advertised every morning on Nickelodeon, the Cartoon Network and other children's TV outlets?
...
The real villain here is the Jack Valenti-controlled MPAA. Its "Kangaroo Jack" ruling is another nail in the coffin for a ratings board that has shown itself to be wildly out of touch with parental standards and totally capricious in its judgments, having given an R rating, for example, to "Billy Elliot," preventing scores of kids from seeing a truly inspirational movie.
Gotta love the MPAA.
I found a cool little OS X app today called JPEGDeux. You give it a list of images and it lets you move through them like a slide show. It's just what I've been looking for to read manga on my computer. Now I can finally get through YKK.
Eric Hoffer. "You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you." [Quotes of the Day]
Way before I got into DJing I used to make "mix tapes" for friends of mine. I was constantly looking for just the right combination of tracks. I had a number of people I'd trade ones with online. Once I got into the rave scene, the idea of a mixtape changed slightly. It was usually a tape of music mixed together by a single DJ. Now in the last few months I've noticed an emergence of mixes, this time in the form of the mix CD. I've even sent out one or two myself (different from my DJ mixes). The NYTimes has a cool article on the topic:
For the Mix Tape, a Digital Upgrade and Notoriety. In the age of digital files and the CD burner, the homemade compilations called "mix" tapes have become bigger than ever. By David F. Gallagher. [New York Times: Technology]
There's also a short piece on artofthemix.org. Now I'm feeling inspired.
Alvin Toffler. "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." [Quotes of the Day]
Over at The Scobleizer Weblog there's mention of something I blogged about as it was happening:
It gets even worse. Kynn takes on Live Journal for shutting down his site. "These guys are pretty awful with their customer service, in my opinion."
He also mentions the post Kynn's LJ was taken down for in the post before that. I sometimes find it interesting how stuff tends to resurface on the net now and then. Even looking at my web server logs I see people hitting a few of my posts from last year quite regularly (even commenting on them now and then).
Hey there folks. Tonight promises to be a fun one. I actually haven't heart Shwilly spin in ages, so I'm pretty excited about it all. The week's half over, so come blow off some steam with the Petes and I with a drink made by our wonderful bartender Asia. Here's the official post:
Changmian and Dubcoast present
*~The Analog Lounge~*
The relaxed side of things. Join us every Wednesday for a mix ofmusic styles in the lounge at Vertigo. This week, we bring yousomeone who's been in Boston for quite a while. I think the firsttime I saw him spin was at Circle way back when it was at its firstlocation. The one and only:
Shwilly B - Circle, Gnomefatty - Boston, MAwith resident dj's
Gregory Blake (Changmian) Boston
Special Pete (dubcoast music) CA
Peter Ellis - Boston
Pete Yagmin (Changmian) BostonWednesdays
@ Vertigo (upstairs)
126 State St. Boston, MA
617-723-7277
10pm - 2am
21+ with ID
$5 cover (gets you into both the Lounge and Anitya)
No dress code
www.changmian.com
www.dubcoast.com
www.vertigoboston.com
www.mapquest.com (directions)
Upcoming Guests:
02/01 - Daniel Spurling [PitchDown/Improper Bostonian]
02/12 - Growroom night w/ Bon Bons [Growroom]
02/19 - Changmian night w/Dino [Changmian]
And don't forget Anitya, downstairs at Vertigo every week.
Lukas is writing about dinner for fiveDinner for Five, which I also just discovered within the last few weeks and have been TiVoing. This show is quite cool, I ran through a bunch of them that I'd TiVo'd last night. It's interesting seeing a glimpse into the world of moviemaking and the people involved like this.
I posted about making Onigiri the other day and then happened to be at the japanese market at Porter Exchange yesterday. While shopping around I noticed they had what looked like onigiri set out by the meat section. I looked through what they had and a number of them scared me as far as fillings went. But they did have ones filled with cooked salmon so I bought one and tried it. Quite yummy. It also helped me see that I was on the right track with making mine.
C|net has an article about how the worm that hit over the weekend "Worm exposes laziness and Microsoft flaws". While I do like blaming MS, I lay a lot of blame on lazy and incompetent sysadmins. From what I understand of this, it sounds like a lot of it could have been prevented with some solid network security. Do that many people really need their SQL Server installation open to the whole outside world?
And after Nimda, any sysadmin who didn't have their machines patched should lose their job. IMHO, there's no excuse. How many times do you have to get stung before you learn?
This brings up one of the issues I have with the dot.com boom. When dot.coms were booming they were hiring like crazy. A lot of people with little or no experience were hired, both developers and sysadmins. While there were some that rose to the occasion and were quite good, there was a lot more mediocrity. I think we're seeing more fallout of that now.
Noel Coward. "I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me." [Quotes of the Day]
Today on a whim I decided to see if I could make Onigiri (rice balls). I have this new cookbook called The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook that had recipes for them and also looked online to see what I could find. There were quite a number of good recipes. Here's one and here is another. I used the first one as a guide and used some smoked salmon I had in it. Very yummy. I think I've found a new snack.
Testing posting in Radio from NetNewsWire.
Franklin P. Adams. "I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way." [Quotes of the Day]
I picked up a hunk of smoked salmon when at the store the other day and decided to try it in an omelette this morning. It came out really good. Though I think I'd use more next time (and more cheese too).
I feel like I need a nap now.
How out of touch is Gregory? He didn't realize that today was the superbowl. Anyone up for doing non-superbowl related things?
Every time I think I've seen everything when it comes to Hello Kitty, something comes along to remind me I shouldn't give up hope yet. From the world of Antipixel:
Kitty-chan Sausages. The stomach rumbles as the mind boggles: Kitty-chan sausages (I kid you not).
mmmm. sausages.
I'm not a huge fan of Valentines day. But when reading my friends page on LJ this morning Colubra had a link to The Valentine Candy for the Dejected and Dysfunctional.
Superficial modifications to BitterSweets this year include an increase in the total number of designs available - from 15 in 2002 to 37 in 2003. New sayings include, 'SHE COOKS', 'WRITE A POEM', 'UP YER DOSAGE', 'IT FADED', 'KICKED 2 CURB' AND 'C THAT DOOR?'. Another trivial improvement in 2003 was the identification of 6 specific flavors, "Banana Chalk", "Grape Dust", "Citrucel", "You-Call-This-Lime?", "Pink Sand" and "Fossilized Rolaid". (Flavors were unspecified in 2002.) And perhaps least significant of all, the new 2003 BitterSweets label featured an entirely new PMS color and twice as many fonts.
I want these. Anyone wanna get me some?
It's Steak and Blowjobs Day. I really don't have much more to say about this, I just wanted to share it with everyone.
Bah, I just found out that Cowboy Bebop is showing out in Northampton today for some anime festival. I could have easily been up for driving out there and hitting Growroom Records. Oh well, it will be better to wait for the theatrical release of it. I've already seen the movie, I just want to see it on the big screen.
Nathaniel Borenstein. "The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause accidents." [Quotes of the Day]
I'm not a huge fan of CD/DVD changers. The biggest reason is that once you fill them up they aren't really any more useful than a normal CD/DVD player. And it takes a bit of effort to keep things organized. But this one from Sony is getting there. Now all they need is to give it a rendezvous enabled web interface and it would be pretty cool. (But you'd still have that whole issue when you fill it up).
Part of me wishes I could go into business making things like this. I think so many of the products out there are so close, but just not quite there yet.
While looking at my referer logs I saw a couple of hits that came from Boston Common. It seems that someone's scanning through Boston based blogs and forums for interesting tidbits of news. It's pretty neat. I've found a couple of links to interesting restaurants I wouldn't mind trying.
No? Then how about a penguin instead?
A Penguin For All Seasons
Penguins make wonderful birthday and holiday gifts all year long.Ê Now and throughout the Christmas season get a discount on all purchased penguin accessories when a penguin purchased! Catch a penguin while their hot!Ê This deal won't last long.
Hmm, I have been wanting a pet...
Wow, this is pretty keen.
this is cool. It's obvious why this page is number one on daypop today.
[Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog]
Peter McWilliams. "To avoid situations in which you might make mistakes may be the biggest mistake of all." [Quotes of the Day]
Showing up on a few places in the last day is posts pointing to the origin of the term 'SPAM' (boingboing and jenett.radio being the ones I'm seeing at the moment). I was around in those early days of MUDing and remember seeing people chanting 'SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM' (as do probably more than a few people reading this).
Okay, so it is frickin cold out currently. My normally too warm apartment has a bit of a breeze even. It's kinda wacky. But as cold as it is where I am, it isn't as cold as at the Mount Washington Observatory (where they seem to have their own blog
What happens when you have a bunch of weather freaks up on the summit with 100+ mph winds? They go outside and run/flop around. It has been an amazing night with the winds topping out at 142 mph. I don't think that I have the courage to face that full on out on the deck. All I can do is peak around the tower and wait for the blast to hit. Have you ever stuck your head out of a moving car?...well this is kind of like that except the car is a NASCAR running the oval. I guess it would be dog heaven, but Nin won't even leave the comfort of the living quarters couch.
I can't even imagine it. 142 mph winds. You'd stick your head outside for a second and it would turn into a block of ice.
It is Wednesday again, which means another night in The Analog Lounge. We taking things easy tonight with a residents night. And since I've spun just about every night since we've started I'm going to let the rest of the guys have a little bit of fun.
Changmian and Dubcoast present
*~The Analog Lounge~*
The relaxed side of things. Join us every Wednesday for a mix ofmusic styles in the lounge at Vertigo. This week, attack of thePetes! I'll be taking a break from spinning tonight to play the roleof host while our three Petes take over the decks.with resident dj's
Gregory Blake (Changmian) Boston
Special Pete (dubcoast music) CA
Peter Ellis - Boston
Pete Yagmin (Changmian) BostonWednesdays
@ Vertigo (upstairs)
126 State St. Boston, MA
617-723-7277
10pm - 2am
21+ with ID
$5 cover (gets you into both the Lounge and Anitya)
No dress code
www.changmian.com
www.dubcoast.com
www.vertigoboston.com
www.mapquest.com (directions)
Coming up next week: Shwily B
And don't forget Anitya, downstairs at Vertigo, is celebrating its one year ani\versary this week..
So this year I did two Secret Santas. The first was an online one from a web page that hosted it last year. It was pretty cool and I had fun doing it, so decided to do it again this year. Unfortunately, I still haven't received anything from that one.
The second one was one done with another group of online friends. And today I got a package from amazon containing some stuff from my wish list. So thank you Mr. Sekrit Santa for the Office Space DVD and Permutation City by Greg Egan. I'm just about done reading a book now so that one will be read right away.
First I overslept. After getting a bit of programming done I decided to head out to the store, only to discover I had a flat. Not sure what to do I checked out AAA's web site and discovered I could sign up right there and have coverage. So I signed up and was even able to put in a service request on their web site. Pretty damn slick IMHO. And the guy was great. He had my tired changed in under five minutes, which I thought was pretty amazing. Even then, my ears were about to snap off from the cold by the time I went back in. Tonight I must go to sleep early so I can get to the car place first thing to get a new tire.
Mike Pinkerton is thinking about what to do with Chimera. He asks "Who aspires to be number two in an already over-commoditized space?" I for one hope he doesn't stop work on it. I still like it a bit more than Safari (and not just for the tabs). I see this as being like iChat and Proteus. iChat is nice because it gives the person who just bought their new mac a way to do IM. They don't have to think too much about things, it does all the basics, but it is missing key features that anyone who has used IM for a while misses (lack of groups for instance). Proteus has all that and more. It fills that space beyond the basics. That's where Chimera fits in my view (and I'd miss that cool bookmarks panel that slides out from the side. I personally like that better than Safari's bookmark stuff.
Dave asks a question about comments, specificly "Every time I post a comment on a weblog I have to remember to go back and see if anyone followed up. We have to figure a way to automate this. Agree or disagree?"
I agree. I've thought about this on and off for a while and am thinking there needs to be some overall rethinking of comments in Radio. First off, radio supplies a way to handle comments. I don't use it because I already had my own commenting system in place long before it became available. But the thing I like about my commenting system is that the page uses CSS so that I can easily style it to look like my blog. Yes, it is purely a visual thing, but I think a lot of bloggers do care about things like this. One other big gripe I have with radio's comments is that they display the commenter's email address. Making it that much easier for them to be harvested for spam.
Now as far as following conversations in comments, I think it's possible, but there are possible tradeoffs. LiveJournal handles comments well by being a somewhat closed system. If you are a LiveJournal user and you comment on someone's post you get notified of any answers. I'm pretty sure that there's no way for this to happen with anonymous comments. I think the easiest way might be to work it in with RSS. You can maybe tag a certain blog post as one to watch, the aggregator will hourly look to see if the comments have changed and let you know if they have. This might be the easiest way to handle a wide range of commenting systems.
Mmm, nothing like coffee in the morning. It was a bit warmer today then the past two days when I went out for my coffee. In the high 20s as opposed to 4. I'm trying to get back onto some kind of regular schedule, in hopes of keeping myself a bit more motivated then I have been. We'll see how it goes.
Found this posting over on Derek's Rantings and Musings about him trying to cancel his AOL service. I needed a laugh like that this morning.
Tom Stoppard. "The truth is always a compound of two half- truths, and you never reach it, because there is always something more to say." [Quotes of the Day]
I stopped in at Real Taco in Harvard Square today and picked up two fish tacos. They were okay, but still weren't up to socal standards. I kind of wish someplace like Rubio's would expand to New England. I keep craving mexican like I could get in San Diego. I've come kinda close here and there, but it just hasn't been the same.
Court Rules Against Network Associates' Software Review Policy. A court has ruled that the company may not require people who buy its software to get permission before publishing reviews of its products. By Matt Richtel. [New York Times: Technology]
I remember when I first read about this I was kind of stunned. I don't know of any other kind of product where the maker tries to insist that you must have their permission to review it. If someone requires permission I'm immediately suspicious. Even though I understand their reasoning I still think it is wrong to restrict what people can write.
My friend Jeff pointed me at an article about a Museum exhibit in Detroit that covers the history of techno. Quite fitting since detroit is the home of techno. From the sound of it, this exhibit is quite overdue.
Detroit's electronic music community is notorious for nitpicking. Be it deconstructing the finer elements of what separates one genre from another or arguing over who performed a particular style first -- artists, fans and pundits always find something to quibble over.
But there is one point on which everyone seems to agree; techno music -- which originated in Detroit -- has been too long ignored by its hometown.
The Detroit Historical Museum hopes to change all that. On Saturday, the museum will unveil a new exhibit on the evolution and significance of Detroit techno, which blossomed in Europe in the mid '80s but remained a veritable enigma at home until recently.
A Christmas toy intended to spread the peace and love of the holiday apparently spews hatred.
As first reported by The Columbian, a Vancouver, Wash., family discovered that the toy they unsuspectingly attached to their son's crib utters the words "I hate you" amid the rhythmic ocean sounds designed to lull the baby asleep.
I can just imagine the parents sitting in another room, listening to the baby monitor and suddenly hearing "I hate you" now and then and completely freaking out. I also love Wal-Mart's response when asked about it. I think I can see a market for this though. Start young and have your child work through adversity to become a stronger person.
From over at Yahoo the other day: "Fox to Test America's Intelligence".
Let me get this straight: Fox is going to test our intelligence? CBS would be one thing, but Fox? The network that brought us "Married with Children" and the Fox News Channel? (Sunday nights is an aberration. What with the "The Simpsons," someone outside the network must be programming Sundays.)
Could be worse, I suppose. Could be MTV or the WB...
[Over the Edge]
I don't think MTV or the WB is that much worse. I mean, Fox is the one bringing us quality shows like Joe Millionaire. Aren't the ratings on the show evidence enough of the nation's intelligence?
This one is almost as cool as the coffee machine case mod. But I think this one might be more useful. I can think of more than a few places in my house it might be handy to have something like this.
PC 12v Cigarette Lighter Adapter Kit
"Need a light?? Here you go. You'll only find this item here at FrozenCPU.com! Basically, this is a car cigarette lighter kit which has been adapted to be used in a PC's 5 1/4 bay.
What this kit includes:
- Cigarette Lighter
- Sleeved 4pin 12v Molex Connector
- Washer for drilling the hole
With this adapter kit, your PC can now do EVERYTHING a regular Cigarette Lighter can with no trouble at all. Charge cell phones, power cd players, you name it." [via Daypop Top 40]
Who thinks up this stuff? Just $19 and it's yours. Why, I'm not sure.[The Shifted Librarian]
Ow. I hurt. Mostly because I haven't gotten enough sleep. I awoke at 7:15 to my alarm going off. I'm not sure how long it had been going off. How long I'd been hitting the snooze button. And I'm certainly not sure at what point in my half awake state I'd turned on the lava lamp (though that might help explain my having "Flashlight" running through my head this morning). Why am I up? Because my parents are coming up to go to some imported furniture store they like that is going out of business and I said "sure, you can come up after you go shopping". Because my apartment is currently a disaster area and I hate them seeing it like that. So now I'm off for coffee so I can clean up some then collapse back onto my bed.
I think this is the part where I'm also supposed to say "I'm getting too old for this shit.
Yay, I have new hair! I always like getting my hair done, it just puts me in a good mood. Hopefully I'll be able to get some pictures tonight at the club that I don't hate. Though if you live in the area you should really come out. (yes, not so subtle hint there). I do think it shoudl be a cool night though, the music should be great.
BitTorrent is pretty damn cool. I think I first saw Adam post about it a while back. At that time it was windows only so I didn't pay too much attention. There also weren't many people using it. But now it has appeared on the scene in the anime digisub world and it's getting more use than ever. I just downloaded a 130MB file in about 25 minutes.
BitTorrent is a protocol for distributing files. It identifies content by url and is designed to integrate seamlessly with the web. Its advantage over plain http is that when multiple downloads of the same file happen concurrently, the downloaders upload to each other, making it possible for the file source to support very large numbers of downloaders with only a modest increase in its load.
I wouldn't be surprised if game demos start being available as torrent downloads. It makes perfect sense for new demos that are anything over 20MB in size.
Damn, woke up again in the middle of the night. And just when I thought I was getting back onto a regular sleep schedule. Oh, and I tried one of those Breath-Right nose strips that came with the saline spray I bought and it kind of works. I'll have to try the second one tomorrow night and see if it was just a fluke or something. It feels a little weird to wear though.
Hey there, it's almost Wednesday and that means another week of The Analog Lounge that you should all come out for. This week promises to be pretty good with the addition of our latest resident, Pete Yagmin, and our special guest DJ Fran (who has always been a favorite of mine). Here's the official announcement:
Changmian and Dubcoast present
*~The Analog Lounge~*
The relaxed side of things.
Join us every Wednesday for a mix ofmusic styles in the lounge at Vertigo. This week we're bringing in oneof my favorite locals. So grab some friends and come on out for somenice deep house goodness.This week's special guest:
Fran (Universal Tongues) Boston
with resident dj's
Gregory Blake (Changmian) Boston
Special Pete (dubcoast music) CA
Peter Ellis - Boston
And Introducing
Pete Yagmin (Changmian) BostonWednesdays
@ Vertigo (upstairs)
126 State St. Boston, MA
617-723-7277
10pm - 2am
21+ with ID
$5 cover (gets you into both the Lounge and Anitya)
No dress code
www.changmian.com
www.dubcoast.com
www.vertigoboston.com
www.mapquest.com (directions)
And don't forget Anitya, downstairs at Vertigo every week.
And if you come out, you should ask our amazing bartender Asia to make you a Raspberry Lemonade Martini, they are killer.
Thanks go to Izumi for this link to some flash animation that is so wrong I can't stop watching it. Go and watch the Happy Tree Friends. Warning, not for the squeamish.
I built my first snowman in Animal Crossing. But he was unhappy and said he was such a bad snowman that he'd scare children. I suck.
My mom made something similar to this on Christmas morning. It was really good, and when looking through some other receipes for stuff like it I found this. This morning a friend of mine had a kind of pot luck brunch and had people bring stuff over. This was perfect (and it came out soooo good).
French Toast Casserole
Ingredients:
1 loaf French bread or Challah
8 large eggs
3 cups whole milk
4 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon each cinnamon and nutmeg
Topping:
2 sticks butter
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup chopped pecans (optional)
2 tablespoons corn syrup (or maple syrup)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmegGrease a 13 by 9 inch pan. Cut bread into 1 inch thick slices and arrange in baking dish, overlapping slices to fit, if necessary.
Combine eggs, milk, sugar and vanilla and spices until blended.
Pour mixture over bread, making all is covered evenly. Cover pan with foil and refrigerate overnight.
When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350.
Spread topping evenly over bread and bake, uncovered, for 40 - 50 minutes, or until puffy and lightly browned.
Can serve with additional maple syrup and bacon or sausage.
Variations: Could also sprinkle the top of the casserole with blueberries before baking or just sprinkle cinnamon sugar over the top instead of the topping
Yum. I have a tiny bit leftover too that I think I will have right now.
In surfing around this morning I ran into Surfin' Safari, a blog by Dave Hyatt. From how he writes I believe he's a developer at Apple. Pretty cool to have this kind of resource available.
I'd love to see things like this for more products from Apple. As much as I like Apple, so much of the time they are so silent about anything. You never know if they are listening or not. For instance, I was just talking to a friend about iChat. We were both wondering what was up with it as there's been no real talk about it from Apple since it was released and it definitely needs some cleaning up (and the ability to group users).
Jimmy Stewart. "I've wrestled with reality for 35 years, Doctor, and I'm happy to state I finally won out over it." [Quotes of the Day]
Unknown. "A stitch in time would have confused Einstein." [Quotes of the Day]
I finally got my car out a few hours ago. My friend Brian rules. He first tried to dig me out, but then he just pulled out a tow line, hooked it up to his SUV and pulled me out. When we looked I was on a pretty serious patch of ice.
I think boogied over to Jill's place for Laid Off Lunch with her and Bree and some other friends. They made this really really good chicken and lots of other great stuff. Next time I want to come up with something to cook.
I have someone coming by to help dig me out. Thanks for the many kind offers for help!
My car is stuck in a patch of snow. Anyone wanna come and help dig me out?
Due to the holidays we've been on a bit of a hiatus, but we're back now in full strength plus one even. Tonight we welcome a new resident Peter Ellis. If you were out a few weeks ago he was spinning for us then. We liked him so much we decided to drag him into the group. And tonight we've also got MJ. We'd tried a few other times to get him to spin, but this time it will finally work out (*knock on word*). So come out tonight and join Pete, Peter, MJ, and I and have a drink made by our amazing bartender. Let's show Vertigo that we can pack the upstairs.
Changmian and Dubcoast present
*~The Analog Lounge~*
The relaxed side of things. Join us every Wednesday for a mix ofmusic styles in the lounge at Vertigo. This week we have are proud toannounce both a new resident AND a guest we've been trying to get infor a while now (3rd try's the charm).resident dj's
* Gregory Blake (Changmian) Boston
* Special Pete (dubcoast music) CA
And introducing our newest resident:
Peter Ellis - Boston
This week's special guest:
_M.J._ (AudioDreamControl, Galanta.net, Satellite - Boston)Wednesdays
@ Vertigo (upstairs)
126 State St. Boston, MA
617-723-7277
10pm - 2am
21+ with ID
$5 cover (gets you into both the Lounge and Anitya)
No dress code
www.changmian.com
www.dubcoast.com
www.vertigoboston.com
www.mapquest.com (directions)
And don't forget Anitya, downstairs at Vertigo every week.
Last night I after I posted I was made aware of a very cool feature in OS X called Summarize. It is an OS X service, so it is available in everything. It seems to take a block of text and offer a summary of it. The cool thing is that it is adjustable as to how much of the original content it snips out. To use it, hilite a block of text, then go to the services menu and choose Summarize. A window comes up with a little slider to adjust the level of summation. You can then copy/paste it or save it into a file. Pretty slick.
The above block of text summarized down into: "To use it, hilite a block of text, then go to the services menu and choose Summarize". Not bad. Oh, and I just found a knowledge base article on it.
The other week I posted about some horrifying experiences with airport security. Well, this time someone else had a run in with them, Penn (of Penn & Teller) had quite an interesting time when he went to take a flight. I'm not gonna bother to quote any of it, because it's hard to choose any one part.
This recipe came with some sundried tomato sauce I picked up the other day. it looked pretty good so I thought I'd make note of it here so I would remember to try it out this weekend.
Sun-Dried Tomato Penne & Shrimp
8 ounces penne rigate, cooked as package directs
1 pound frozen medium cooked shrimp
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup dry white wine or water
2/3rd cup Classico Creations Sun-Dried Tomato Sauce and SpreadIn a medium skillet, cook shrimp in oil for 2 to 3 minutes or until the shrimp are heated through. Add wine, cook and stir until most of wine has evaporated, about 1 minute. In large bowl, gently toss hot penne, sun-dried tomato sauce and shrimp.
Makes 4 Servings
When I made this I ended up using some really yummy sausage instead of the shrimp (since the person I was making it for didn't like shrimp). It came out wonderfully.
Macworld SF was today and some of the new stuff looks pretty cool. It's nice to see the iLife apps (iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, and iDVD) all integrated with one another. The new presentation software looked particularly cool. The thing I thought was cool is that the file format for it is xml based and open. So in theory people could write tools to do somewhat dynamic presentations. Imagine coming into the office the morning before a presentation and having all the data you need fed into the presentation moments before so that it can be as up to date as possible.
They also released the beta of a new browser they are releasing called Safari. So far it looks pretty cool. It's definitely fast, but missing a lot of features that Chimera and Mozilla have. Hopefully we'll see those in a real release. And I'm posting this using it, so we'll see how it goes.
They only had one big hardware announcement and that was their new Powerbooks. There are two new models. The first being a 17" widescreen display which is pretty damn slick. It's also an inch thick, has firewire 2, 802.11g, bluetooth, gigabit ethernet and all the other goodies you normally get on a Powerbook. The second model is a smaller one that looks to be the size of the current ibook. It's pretty cool. I think I'd prefer the one with the bigger screen though, just because I tend to do a fair amount of things at once. But they are both pretty damn cool.
Time to get a job!
BoingBoing has a link an artist's site with pictures made from a unique pinhole camera. The pinhole camera is actually made from photo-paper, so it is one-use.
To simplify these cameras as much as possible I made them out of the 11x14 inch photo-paper itself. There is no film in the camera because the camera is the film. Like a salad bowl made of lettuce leaf, and consumed with the meal, the camera doesn't exist after its utility is fulfilled. There is no machine. It is more of an arrangement than a thing.
Since it is color paper, sensitive to the full spectrum of visible light, there is no "safe" light recommended for darkroom work. Each paper box camera is cut, folded, and constructed in the dark and kept in a dark bag until its moment in the sun has come.
So. Cool.
I'm cursing my friend Emily for sending me the url for Gridlock. It is a web based version of a puzzla game called (i think) Rush Hour. I used to have a version of this on my Palm and would play it all the time while waiting to see the doctor. Endlessly addicting.
Chris posts about PETA over on her LiveJournal. It seems that PETA is endorsing a line of fake leather S&M gear.
picture the serious newsman. he stares straight into the camera - lips wriggling - and says "PETA has endorsed a new line of non-leather S&M gear. they tout the line as being (beat) 'cruelty-free'"
And, from the PETA page on this:
The scantily clad protesters plan to show sophisticated consumers that real beauty is far more than skin deep. "By showing some of our skin, we hope to save animals' skins," says "dominatrix" Lisa Franzetta. "With today's stylish and comfortable synthetics and faux leather, itâs easy to 'moo-ve' away from leather and leave the hides behind."
I'm wondering though, why they felt the need to put dominatrix in quotes. Is she not really a dominatrix?
Been kinda quiet lately, though catching up on life today. I'm in the process of making a present for a friend of mine, since I didn't get around to it before xmas. Also been catching up on ripping CDs this week. Here's where we are now.
- Richard Blade's Flashback Favorites
- Eon - Fear: The Mindkiller (Cd Single)
- Erasure - Crackers International
- Erasure - The Innocents
- Erasure - The Circus
- Erasure - The Two Ring Circus
- Erasure - Wonderland
- Erasure - Star (CD Single)
- Erasure - Abba-Esque - The Remixes
- Erasure - Pop!
- Erasure - Blue Savannah (Cd Single)
- Erasure - Drama (CD Single)
- Everything But the Girl - Walking Wounded
- Escaflowne OST 1
- Ichiko Hashimoto - RahXephon OST 1
- Folk Implosion - Natural One (CD Single)
- Soho - Goddess
- Hardfloor - TB Resuscitation
Phew, a lot in that bunch. Though I'm real close to finishing up now. People won't have to put up with this for much longer.
Found over on the new Freshmeat section for OS X: Whamb. It plays CDs, mp3s and Ogg files. It is also skinnable and has its own version of playlist sharing over Rendezvous. Pretty slick. There's also a way you can set up a server sharing out playlists over Rendezvous on Linux.
My favorite skin so far is the one shown on the home page. It fits so nicely in the corner of my screen.
Robert Benchley. "There are two kinds of people in the world, those who believe there are two kinds of people in the world and those who don't." [Quotes of the Day]
Last night I had BBC America on and just happened to catch French & Saunders: Lord of the Rings. This has got to be one of the sillier parodies I've seen of LotR, and one of the better ones. And yes, it does have Teletubbies in it.
I just finished watching the boxed set of Sports Night. I'd gotten this for my birthday with a gift certificate from a friend. Watching the end of this show reminded me how much I was annoyed it got cancelled when it did (and that nobody else picked it up). At least the show didn't end on a major cliffhanger or anything like that.
Tom Stoppard. "We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered." [Quotes of the Day]
When you wake up in the morning, you can go for at least 30 minutes without saying a word, then remember it is the first of the month and yell out "RABBIT! RABBIT!"
Did everyone else remember to today?
