nothing's impossible
2005.11.28 21.02
I'm digging on this track from Depeche Mode's latest album that I picked up off iTunes last month. I'm posting the lyrics below. Don't try to read anything into them -- I just think the song is awesome.
Having my iPod back is wonderful, although I've been informed that I really need to re-import all my CDs using the Apple Lossless format. The files will be bigger but the sound quality is CD quality. Oh, and speaking of my iPod -- I gave my third-generation 40GB iPod to my neice Nicole as a birthday present when I was in Houston the weekend before last. She got into town last night and didn't go to bed until she'd imported the latest Madonna CD onto the iPod. Pretty cool for an 11 year old, huh? My next purchase? Rent Soundtrack. Reviews coming soon.
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Just give me a reason, some kind of sign I'll need a miracle to help me this time I heard what you said, and I feel the same I know in my heart that I'll have to change Even the stars look brighter tonight Nothing's impossible I still believe in love at first sight Nothing's impossible How did we get to be this far apart? How did we get to be this far apart? I want to be with you, something to share I want to be near you, sometimes I care |
Even the stars look brighter tonight Nothing's impossible I still believe in love at first sight Nothing's impossible Even the stars look brighter tonight Nothing's impossible If you believe in love at first sight Nothing's impossible I still believe in love at first sight Nothing's impossible |
video ipod replaced & all is well
2005.11.28 11.22
On Sunday, I took the 25 bus to IKEA and returned a pillowcase I'd bought the day before. It was far too rectangular for my taste. I then walked to Best Buy where they had plenty of white 60 GB Video iPods on hand to exchange for my busted ass iPod. The cool thing about the exchange is that it's as if I bought a brand new iPod yesterday and the three year service plan began as of the time I got the replacement. Nice. I'm liking the Best Buy more and more these days. In a similar vein -- as far as expensive gadgets are concerned -- on Saturday I went to Delaware to shop for a laptop with The Heather at Circuit City. They were putting the pressure on her as far as buying a copy of Norton AntiVirus 2006 with built in firewall protection. Woo. I pointed out that Windows XP already has a firewall installed. They shifted gears and told her that they would install the software ''for free'' and that doing so would let them ''make sure everything was okay with the laptop.'' I was like, ''We're not really feeling the benefit of having you install something, bro.'' From therein, every attempt made to make the extra sale was promptly shot down by my Super Genius logic. I felt sorry for them. Okay, well, not really. Maybe a little. I eventually changed the subject by asking were the ''old guy'' sales associate was. They laughed amongst themselves and immediately knew who I was talking about, saying he'd gone home to play with his rascal. The ''old guy'' is the associate I bought my HP laptop from last year at the same Circuit City. I call him Sir Slowy.problems with my 60gb video ipod
2005.11.25 1.24
Everything was going fine tonight while I was learning how to convert videos and put them on my Video iPod... until... it started crashing. I'd sync'ed with iTunes a few times during the evening while I was moving new videos on there until about half an hour ago when the iPod started clicking and flashing in slow succession, over and over. I tried hitting the play button to get the thing to go to sleep but to no avail. I've tried docking it, pressing other buttons, sliding the lock button on the top on and off, and saying things like ''CALM DOWN! GET AHOLD OF YOURSELF!'' I also said a little prayer hoping it would just fix itself. This never seems to work as a problem resolution technique. Feeling the need to document my unhappy circumstance -- and share it with you! -- I grabbed my video camera and taped 20 seconds of video. I figure it'll eventually die from lack of power at which time I'll try plugging it back into the dock to see if it snaps out of it. Anyway, here's the video in Windows MediaPlayer format *and* Video iPod format just to amp up the irony factor. Ugh! I'm dreading having to go to Best Buy to get this thing worked on. I *knew* I shouldn't have put pr0n on there!WindowsMedia Player format | Video iPod format (also playable via Quicktime)
happy thanksgiving 2k5
2005.11.24 14.54
Busy day. Ran three miles at the gym before they closed at noon so I could counteract the effects of the horn of giving. Tonight I'm hanging out with Heatherito and her family. My dad is in Houston at my Aunt Carol's place with my cousins on his side. My mom, sister and nieces are in Los Angeles with my Uncle and cousins on her side. It's actually a little weird as this is the first time I've ever spent Thanksgiving elsewhere. I'm typing this entry from my basement while I'm waiting on my clothes to put in the dryer. I think I can hear Chew Chew making a complaining noise upstairs as he knows it's dinner time. I'll post a more respectable update soon as this is the first day in two weeks that I haven't been immersed in java programming and PL/SQL daydreams. So, to close -- remember, no matter who you are, the Super Genius like to wish you and your family a happy Thanksgiving! And now, my 4th Grade Elementary School photo which I'm posting because my trainer Justin says I need more pictures.
seattle times, baby!
2005.11.21 5.47
Now Bill Gates knows about My Favorite Pillow.life in philly
2005.11.17 11.34
I've been working 10 hour days since last week including weekends and I'm starting to feel trapped in an infinite loop. We are testing and retesting the application that I've been working on since May that will support the client's new initiatives. It's been fun learning new things and also training new developers on the framework. I'm hoping to stick around on the project until at least June 2006 -- our tentative end-of-project date. Philadelphia has become a second home away from home for me now that I've been here for 4+ years. I know for sure that I'm more of an Eagles football fan than a Texans fan. I still prefer the Astros over the Phillies and the Rockets over the 76ers. The public transportation, strikes notwithstanding, kick ass. I practically don't need a car for 99% of everything I do. Dating is hard without a car but I'm finding there's always a ghetto bus to take me wherever I want to go. The Chinatown bus to New York is only $20 roundtrip! Shweet! I've got a whole entry about my weekend in New York and seeing the film BROOKLYN LOBSTER. I'll try to catch up and post the funnier bits in an upcoming entry. As far as my site redesign, I've only got a few more tweaks to make and a script to buy and install to make my ad banner more automated. I loves the automation. Here's a link to my inspiration for the $100,000 Ad Banner:
nearly finalized redesign
2005.11.16 13.20
I've got a lot of updates to post when I get home tonight, but for the time being, click here to see the (nearly) finalized redesign for MarkShields.com. Get your checkbooks ready!hung up
2005.11.08 19.08
I just pre-ordered an album for the first time on iTunes. It's Madonna's latest and it drops next week. That's music distribution terminology. I'm fascinated by how Madonna is transforming herself once again. And, yeah, I'll admit it... I've got a crush on Madonna. I think it was that winking at me thing she did at the last concert.
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mist opportunity
2005.11.08 7.39
The SEPTA strike is over as of yesterday. Governor Ed Rendell sat down with union and management at 8 PM Sunday night and didn't emerge until 5:30 AM the next morning. My dog was at the kennel so I took it slow that morning. Upon realizing that my ass was going to be late, I called a taxi to get me to the station. I arrived exactly when my train is supposed to leave assuming that it's always late and that I'd make it. That didn't happen. I called my generous co-worker Praveen to let him kniw I'd be on a later train. On the way to the station in the cab, I noticed a SEPTA bus idling on the corner of 5th and Arch but figured it was a fluke. I tried to get the cabbie to tell me if he knew anything by saying, ''How about that strike, huh?'' He gave me a disclaimer about how he wasn't benefitting from the situation since everyone had switched to taking cars instead of cabs. When I got into the office, I received an email from Heather indicating the strike was over and wondering if I would accompany her for the procurement of groceries. Not having a car has been a mixed bag. On one hand you can go shop with your friends for whatever, but on the other hand you are always bumming rides. I equal things out by hiding money in the coin tray.Upon returning home I made an unsuccessful attempt at retrieving my dog from the kennel. Dang! They closed at 6 PM and I was S.O.L. Since I was driving the PhillyCarShare hybrid and had already paid for an hour of car time, I beelined straight from the vet to the IKEA on Colombus Ave. Mmmmm. IKEA. I needed a mattress for my newly acquired sofa bed. I got the KLASSIC model for a mere $250. Ouch. I stuffed it into the back of the car where I was already storing my (empty) dog carrier. I got home and figured the mattress was slightly longer than the sofabed. I parked the car at its pod and walkked back home to see if I could massage the mattress into fitting. It worked. It's a bit of a tight fit, but I figure it will mostly be in sofa mode versus bed mode. I worked out for an hour with Justin (chest, back, and some biceps and triceps), did some laundry (blues and whites), and learned me more computer skillz (UNIX bash and MovableType tags) before heading off to sleepyland (Zzzzz).
Click here to check out the mini-site I created detailing my LASIK experience. I reversed the order of blog entries to make it more readable. You can thank me later. Or not.
The only highlight this morning came while I was waiting for my train. A girl sitting next to me at the station had carelessly tossed the wrapper from a stick of gum on the chair. She was facing with her back to me, so she probably didn't notice when I crumpled up the wrapper and tossed it into the hood of her jacket. I loves the clean train stations, mmmkay?
50th anniversery of time travel
2005.11.05 8.29
Fifty years ago today on November 5, 1955, Doctor Emmott L. Brown was hanging a clock above his toilet. He unexpectedly slipped and fell, thus hitting his head in the process. When he woke up he had a revelation. A vision in his head of what he would later call the flux capacitor. This revolutionary device is what makes time travel possible. Realizing the vision of that day took nearly all of Dr. Brown's family fortune. Lucky for us, however, his work continues at the Institute of Future Technology facilities in Florida and California. Click here to check out the chronology of time travel events that have occurred thus far. Click here to read my detailed analysis of the events that occurred in the early morning hours of October 26, 1985. Thus far, no media or press have ever witnessed a temporal displacement event. This may change, but the real trick to time travel, according to Dr. Brown, is doing whatever is necessary to avoid getting caught. Disruption of the space-time continuum is also an on-going concern, but Dr. Brown has been careful about limiting out-of-temporal-stream excusions and alternate timeline skew events after he went through a series of unfortunate mishaps in the mid-1980s. We salute you, Dr. Brown, and your future (or past) work, whatever -- or whenever -- that may be.
my favorite pillow goes national
2005.11.04 0.01
Rest Your Head on a Small Ecosystem. Read this article that I interviewed for and freak out. I'm really interested to see which newspapers pick up the story for their Sunday editions. We shall see.walk in the city
2005.11.03 8.57
Last night featured walking nearly five miles as I ran (literally) to the station in the morning, then walked back home at a leisurely pace in the evening, then ran to the gym, and finally ran back home for the final time. I rarely listen to my iPod while I'm doing all of this walking and running, but I'm making an exception in an effort to lessen the boredom. I've found that listening to the Chemical Brothers makes me feel like I'm a bad-ass raver. Listening to the Matrix Soundtrack makes me think I'm Neo and the city is computer generated and all the people are mindless drones. Listening to Madonna makes me feel like I'm back at the concert in first row. This morning I was listening to Depeche Mode's new album and I felt like everyone was moody and depressed and wanted to wear black. I have no idea what will happen when I walk home tonight and listen to my Best of 1970's Sitcom Theme Songs.This morning on the train I was treated to an excrutiating conversation amongst four women. The relative tranquil nature of the regional rail service was interrupted as they spoke of how awesome macaroni and cheese was and how men were are all a certain way and, oh, how that's so true! The icing to this unmediated conversation came when they tried to decide which Sex in the City character they were. ''Oh, you're more of a Carrie'' and ''You're really a Charlotte'' were bandied to and fro. Nobody identified as a party-girl Samantha or a hard-edged Miranda. I definitely detected more than a hint of Miranda within the group. The train eventually pulled up to the Ft. Washington station and I was free to go. Urgh.
