11:55 AM
The band "Ok Go" made an unofficial music video for their song "A Million Ways." It spread across the Internet and allegedly became a cult sensation. I hadn't heard about it until it was mentioned on NPR yesterday. It's sort of funny I guess.
The singer guy is weird lookin', with no hair and a moustache-less beard. That Amish look seems popular these days. He reminds me a lot of the bass-playin' Harry Shearer in A Mighty Wind.
9:23 PM
Some people would consider a t-shirt like this to be tasteless. I would have to disagree, for it is one of the few things I've found on the internet that made me 'LOL IRL' as the kids say.
I can't buy it yet, because "Threadless.com is an on-going tee shirt design competition, anyone can submit their design and if it gets a high enough score and is chosen by the Threadless crew it will be printed and sold from the site."
WTF! I can't just buy it now? All I can do is appeal to you, my preciouses, to make yourself a threadless account and vote '5' on that shirt. Please. Do it for me. Do it for New York.
9:45 AM
Note to self: Stay away from Canyon Car Wash before work.
It took them 45 minutes to wash my car this morning. Forty five minutes! They either don't have enough guys working, or they just don't move fast enough.
Look how excited I am to be waiting for 45 minutes!
They did have free coffee and donuts though, so it wasn't all bad.
9:36 AM
A little known fact of the California vehicle code is that if you get a ticket and choose to contest it, you don't have to go to court.
You can instead request a 'Trial by Written Declaration' - which means that you can plead not guilty through the mail! You can then choose to attend your trial in a courtroom - or through the mail! You can mail in a copy of your testimony and any evidence that you may have to the court!
WHAT!
The officer who issued you the ticket is then obligated to mail in his or her own version of the events that happened - and what do you think are the chances of that happening? Unlike an actual court appearance, the officer won't receive overtime pay for mailing in his or her testimony.
But wait! It gets better. If you wind up losing the case, you have a right to request a new trial! This 'second chance' option is only given to people who have elected to perform a Trial by Written Declaration.
Man that's awesome! Ticket Assassin is a site that gives you all the info and DMV/court forms that you'll need to mount a mail-based defense against a ticket! I'm considering making an illegal u-turn today just to stick it to the man!
9:34 AM Google Talk launched today. It's basically just a Jabber client that connects to a Google Jabber server... Trillian and other third-party Jabber clients can connect to it too.
Do we really need yet ANOTHER IM network? Methinks not!
8:39 AM
Download Tivo Desktop 2.2! The big news with this release is that you can now transfer mpeg2 video from your PC TO your Tivo instead of just the other way around.
10:55 AM
This was me Saturday night as we hung out at Huntington Beach with some friends and family.
Steve
Steve, Stacy, Nicole, and Tammy's feet
When I sit like this it looks like I have no legs. Just two hairy stumps! OH GOD WHAT HAPPENED.
Tammy's dad brought along plenty of wood that we used to keep warm. Toward the end of the night we started looking for anything we could find that would burn just to see what would happen. Plastic shovels, water bottles, you name it.
Sunday we finally bit the bullet and ordered some new couches to replace the dated hand-me-downs we've been living with for years. We had them custom made and they should be ready in about three weeks. I'm so excited to finally have comfortable couches!
10:02 AM
Some guy figured out how to dual-boot Windows XP and Mac OS. Previously you had to devote an entire hard drive to OSX, but now you can just throw it on any ol' partition. VMware is required for installation, but once it's installed you can boot into it natively.
Better print that page out if you're thinking of doing this... Apple hasn't been shy about sending out cease and desists lately.
1:26 PM
While browsing through my high school's web site I found some pictures of this year's senior prank. It was pretty tame but the photos made me laugh.
4:51 PM
The three-episode Jay and Silent Bob appearance on Degrassi starts TONIGHT! Episodes 420, 421, and 422 are the last three episodes of season four.
9:11 AM
Flubba, the man behind PocketNES and Goomba, has just released SMSAdvance - a fully functional emulator for the Sega Master System and GameGear that runs on the Game Boy Advance.
4:43 PM
I've noticed that most of Orange County's garbage is hauled away by automated garbage trucks - so called "one-armed bandits". I am lucky enough to live in an area serviced by these technical wonders.
The truck holds just one garbage man, and he never has to leave the driver's seat. He just pulls a lever and an arm comes down to pick up your trash can, dump its contents in the hopper, and then drop your can back down on the curb before moving on to the next house.
Here's an article about these magic trucks taking to the streets of Raleigh, NC.
Unlike Raleigh, however, trash truck drivers in the OC will just skip your house if your cans are blocked by a car or facing the wrong direction. At least on my street anyway.
It's really hard to find pictures of automatic garbage trucks on the Internet!
EDIT: Pictures found! The Heil RapidRail picks up my garbage every Friday and it's a sight to behold.
9:28 AM
Tammy's birthday was last week and I got her a newfangled iPod. It's a neat toy to play around with, and it's great for long car rides. This morning I learned that someone ported Doom to iPod Linux.
10:27 AM
As you can see I've added Google ads to the sidebar. I don't expect it to make me rich or anything! I only know of a handful of people that read this site on a regular basis, but the ads are mostly there for the tens of people who come here every day after a random Google search points out some obscure old posting in the archives.
I'm hoping that after a few months maybe I'll have enough money to buy a DVD or something.
You should really be using an ad blocker by now anyway! Or better yet, just start viewing the Atom feed.
9:52 AM
If you grew up in the South Bay and you happened to catch this week's episode of Reno 911, you no doubt noticed that the whole "Liberace's Piano" segment was filmed at Del Amo Mall! At one point you can even see a "..Amo Optometry" sign in the background!
If you missed the episode on Tuesday it's being replayed through the weekend. Here's a Tivo link to the episode.
12:11 PM
I had a portable hard drive die in what I call "The Great Data Loss of 2004" and I basically lost every mp3 I ever had. I think it must have been about 40 gigs worth. Countless hours of downloading, ripping, encoding, and meticulously tagging audio files were thrown in the shitter all because I decided to buy what turned out to be IBM's most failure-prone drive, the Deskstar 75GXP.
I've only recently started to put my life back together. I've been bringing stacks of old CDs into the office and ripping them as I work. It's a slow process, but EAC combined with high-quality LAME encoding produces faultless mp3s that sound nearly as good as CDs to my ear. It just takes so frickin' long.
But right now I have an unexplainable craving for a huge glazed donut. It's not really the sugar that I'm craving, so much as it is the awesome feeling you get when you have a mouthful of flaky, doughy sweetness. I just want to take a huge bite out of a glazed donut, and I'm trying not to drool.
Here are some donut photos that should help you to catch DONUT FEVER too!
We spent Saturday night at my parents, then drove out to LA to see the King Tut exhibit at LACMA. No photos were allowed, and you even had to check your camera phone at the door (if you admitted to having one on you!)
The exhibit was pretty sweet, but for some reason I was expecting to see a mummy or two. There were a ton of artifacts though, and lots of gold everywhere you looked. The audio headsets with Omar Sharif's narration were really nifty too.
Sunday night we drove to the House of Blues in Hollywood to see Asia play the last show of their tour. We sort of know the drummer through a friend, so we got special access to the private club/lounge on the top floor called the Foundation Room where the VIPs hang out before and after the show. Cameras weren't allowed there either, but I was able to sneak a shot with my cameraphone of the rainbow of access bracelets on my arm: And a shot of the show from the VIP seating area on the balcony above the stage:
The band rocked. I don't think I'd ever heard more than one or two Asia songs before this weekend, but they really put on a good show. We didn't stay long for the party afterwards as we both had to work the next day, but things were really starting to get going around 1 in the morning.
Valet parking was $15 and gin and tonics were like $9.50. It was a long, long drive from home, too. Los Angeles, I miss you not!
7:48 AM
A guy named Humma Kavula released a hack for the PSP (1.50) that lets you boot UMD .iso files from the memory stick - no patches are required. This first version doesn't work with every game out there, but that'll change.
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