interviews with kittens
2006.03.31 12.24
Do you have a lot of free time? I'm posting up the mp3 files that I made a few months ago for your listening displeasure. Most of it is pretty boring, but I figured I'd put them online for the sake of making them available to the entire earth. Check out what you've been missing!- Warner Cable was formerly known as QUBE cable. They had some talk show on TV 3 (i.e. channel 3 -- how clever) that you could participate in with a little hand controller they had. We ended up just pranking them, instead. The first caller throws out an expletive but they don't seem to get it.
- For some reason I sneaked a tape recorder into the theater with me when I saw STAR TREK 2: THE WRATH OF KHAN on opening day.
- This is just my reading a book based on Helen Keller's early life and my sister helping out. We were in 4th and 6th grade at the time.
- I forget what this is. It's an entire side of a tape.
- My Aunt Jean calls and quizes us about where we live.
- This is some guy that was trying to call my old BBS but I had the answering machine hooked up.
- One of a series of calls. Trey D'Amico is a friend I'd met online in 1983.
- Trey is talking it up and occasionally yelling in this one.
- More of Trey and now I'm on the phone and we're doing some kind of phone phreaking. It's not what you think.
- First of a series of audio clips I made as I interview a bunch of kittens that my family's cats had.
- Another kitten report. I don't think I started squeezing kittens just yet, but maybe so.
- Yet another kitten report. I love that I gave the data on these things.
- Several months down the road and another kitten report for the books.
- The last kitten report done a few years after the previous ones. I still live in the house where these happened.
- I liked Wonder Woman and for some reason I also liked to pretend I was the IRA computer from that show's dismal seasons two and three.
- More of me faking a computer voice. Terrible!
- I'm pretty mean to my friend John Hall when we both sing this dumb little song, but he gets his revenge.
- Mark typing while whistling. Sorta.
- There used to be a free time service you could call in 1977. I was always fascinated with it.
- This is me reading my diary at some point. I recount my dad's punishment where he burned my Astroworld season pass. Don't worry -- he got me a replacement. I have no idea what I'd done wrong, but I'm sure it related to being REALLY annoying.
- Jersey Village High School won a radio station contest in 1987 that awarded us with a visit from the band Ready for the World.
- More reaction from other students who called into the radio station after we won the radio station contest.
- This one is really, really long. It's all of the messages that I had stored in my voicemail in 1988. There's at least 50 or 60 individual messages, some from friends, girlfriends at the time, and my other phreaker phriends.
podcast episode 2 is up
2006.03.28 22.26
Click here to watch the Super Genius Podcast Episode 2 in Windows MediaPlayer Format.Click here for the Google Video version which features PSP and iPod downloads for you.
Today's episode features 95% of the video I shot in New Orleans for Mardi Gras a few weeks ago. I've also got some introduction video that I shot at the Lindbergh airport here in Minneapolis. This video is completely Safe For Work (in case you were wondering). See? I'm going to heaven!
back to mardi gras
2006.03.24 10.52
I could feel the crisp frozen air of Minneapolis on the nape of my neck as I walked through the jet way and into the plane. The floor of each did not line up and I had to step up to board the plane.''This never happens,'' I thought as I stood inside the airplane door and waited patiently for the herd to find their seats and step aside. I glanced at my ticket and read my seat number out loud: ''21-E.'' Was this plane long enough to have a 21st row? I soon found out upon reaching the last row. 21-E was the middle seat. I tossed my copy of WIRED magazine into the seat and decided to stuff my computer bag into the overhead bin. My camera bag would be staying with me. In retrospect, I don't see the difference between losing two cameras or one computer to a stealthy seated-in-the-back-of-the-plane bag snatcher.
My mind lingered on the chance that I'd get stuck between two football players on their way to sample the hedonistic pleasures of Mardi Gras. Instead, I was soon surrounded by two Vegas cocktail waitresses. I remember them as Mindy and The Other Chick That Didn't Talk. They were go-go dancing at the Harrah's on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights every hour starting at 8:30 PM. I considered stopping by to see them, but only if one of my friends wanted to gamble so I could mooch free drinks. As it turns out, Shawn already gambled the morning before my arrival and was down $60. We would not be visiting Harrah's.
Shawn was in Harrah's that morning because I was in Minneapolis desperately calling my travel agency (ORBITZ) and hotel (Holiday-Inn). As it turns out, the Holiday Inn on Royal St. had canceled the reservations I'd made back on November 23, 2005. They did so by sending a fax to ORBITZ. ORBITZ, in turn, had not received the fax, so they were unaware of the change in plans. FEMA evacuees were still living in the Holiday-Inn and as such would not be leaving before my arrival. The Holiday-Inn people I spoke to on the phone suffered from a mix of short-term memory loss and We're Sorry But There's Nothing We Can Do. The ORBITZ people, however, were more on the ball. They refunded my money and then set up a new hotel reservation for me at the four-star hotel Omni Royal Orleans off St. Louis St. and Royal St. Nice! I text messaged Shawn and instant-messaged Katherine (see her photo album of our trip) about our new lodging details. I was then off into the UHaul-Mobile to take Chew Chew to the kennel and procure more Waltham S/O canine diet food for his stay.
Mindy revealed that she had a pit bull and a five year old son -- both of which got along quite well. I call this the Commitment Reveal when a moment like this comes during a conversation. You realize that you could only ever hope to be friends with this person and that he or she is not available for further extra-curricular activity. We continued the small talk until we hit a lull whereupon I returned to my copy of WIRED and she returned to her Book Whose Title I Didn't Notice. Our only other interruption came when the beverage service finally reached our row and I requested milk. The stewardess responded with an obnoxious, ''OHHHHHHH! Isn't that so cute! You're so healthy!'' ''Yes, I am,'' was my monotone response. ''Everyone else is getting sh*t faced,'' she assured me. ''The pilot, too?'' I asked.
Upon landing and departing the aircraft, I quickly focused on the succession of baggage claim arrows that would lead me back to my luggage. Aside from some guy tossing a bag that he thought was his but wasn't on top of my bag, the retrieval process was uneventful. I soon snagged my own private taxi after waiting in a gi-normous line. The trip into town was a combination of freeway driving mixed with back road travel through some of the more decimated parts of town. I noticed many other cars were also traveling this route. I briefly wondered where all this traffic was going considering almost no one was living in the area anymore. As it turns out, *all* of the traffic was heading into the French Quarter. Six months after Katrina, the desire to party had not dissipated.
The OMNI Royal Orleans hotel is located midway between Canal and St. Anne street and only one block over from Bourbon St. This makes it ideal for returning for more beads, returning to pee, returning to rest, and returning just for the sake of returning. My room was a single queen bed. This would pose a sleeping challenge the next day as Katherine was due in town from Prague.
Summarizing the next few days can be done quickly by listing the activities that took place.
- Sunbathing on the roof
- Getting sunburned when I forgot to put sunscreen on my chest
- Constantly scratching my belly
- Getting to know Aiden The Kid Actor
- Drinking hand grenades (a New Orleans specialty drink in a hand grenade shaped cup) with a long neck attached)
- Wondering where Shawn went
- Finding out Shawn got kicked out of the place that sold hand grenades
- Sneaking hand grenades to Shawn from the now off-limits hand grenade place
- Exchanging blinking beads
- Working on my Mardi Gras podcast and attempting humor
- Procrastinating
- Eating coffee and beignets at Cafe Du Mond
- Wondering what ''chicory'' is -- find out here
- Walking past hundreds of shops that closed six months ago which have yet to reopen
- Wondering what that smell was in the bathroom
- Wondering how to force the painted-shut windows to open
- Slipping on beads in the street
- Watching a policeman on horseback fall off his horse when it slipped on beads in the street
- Working for 8 hours on Tuesday (Mardi Gras) when a project that I manage had unexpected problems
- Wishing Daniel was back from The Sabbatical
- Begging the concierge for an additional rollaway bed
- Not getting a rollaway bed and sleeping with three people on a queen mattress
- Being glad that Katherine slept between me and Shawn
image bandits
2006.03.22 7.01
I made it onto Ain't It Cool News again, although this time they may not like what I've done. I posted a group of MATRIX RELOADED photos a few months before the film opened, and I'm constantly finding that random people are directly linking those images from their web sites. It's sort of flattering, but when a big ol' momma site like Ain't It Cool allows one of their writers to do this -- it's annoying. Click this link to see the article in question. Scroll down halfway and you'll see that I replaced the image they link to with something more appropriate.To the right is a link to Gary Numan's latest CD ''Jagged'' that just dropped over the weekend. Get to know him. He's still one of the most original musicians to come out of the early 80s. He's also got a podcast on Apple.com which features him rambling on about how he made the album along with a couple of long samples. Awesome! I'm going to make buying this CD a priority when I get into Houston tomorrow. Look for my review to replace the moron that reviewed the CD so far. That guy is calling Nine Inch Nails a bunch of racket? Please. It's not a bunch of racket. It's a bunch of electronic racket! Get it right.
since I'm already geeking out
2006.03.21 7.54
Normally I don't talk about my programming, but I figured I'd bring up some stuff while I'm at it. I have two cool little JavaScript tricks that I came up with recently which I'd like to show you. These are considerably different than the code I recently posted which I wrote in junior high for my TI 99/4A B.B.S. program. Ah, them were the good ol' days when I could program during Health class.My first trick code is only useful if you need to float a web page on another web page, but make it look like it's really part of the same page. Confused yet? Check out my floating iframe code by clicking here. You can sorta tell that my site is floating inside a box on the page. Notice the white borders? It re-adjusts the height and width of the iframe dynamically whenever you go to another page. This trick only works on pages hosted on the same domain, although there is a registry edit you can make to allow it to work anywhere.
My second trick is for Internet Explorer only (although it will still sorta work in FireFox). It pops open the browser's search frame and puts some code in there. The code borrows the same color scheme that your browser is using (thanks to CSS) so that it looks built in. That's the simple explanation. You could put practically anything in there, but I think a menu of some sort kind of lends itself to the ''search companion'' window.
Feel free to take my code and use it for your own purposes as long as you follow the GNU public license agreement. Otherwise, watch out for the lighting bolts.
ie & xp sp2 & javascript... oh my!
2006.03.20 14.19
You script kiddies out there that still write batch files may be interested to know that Windows XP SP2 causes some weird behavior with Internet Explorer and the command line switches. Specifically, you can't pass javascript in now, so you have to put that javascript someplace else (preferrably on the web page you're loading). Just keep in mind that the command line switches still work. That's not your problem. I'm sure this was done to prevent The Bad Man from getting into your machine and stealing your secret identity.the disclaimer
2006.03.20 9.07
As I slowly edge toward pushing my redesigned site, I've decided that it's time to come up with an adequate disclaimer statement. I copied this one from a guy that does a lot of programming type blogging. I need to put this someplace in my footer, I guess. CYA management can be so much fun. I should also put something in here about not being responsible for anything I blog after drinking a bottle of wine.Views expressed here are my own and do not reflect those of my employer. Reader's comments reflect their individual opinion and their publication on this blog does not necessarily infer my endorsement of their views. I reserve the right to delete a comment. Emails sent to me may be reproduced/quoted on my blog unless the sender specifically requests otherwise.
lake of the aisles minneapolis
2006.03.19 17.45
Okay, I was wrong. I did cardio today instead after some major goofage. In total it was 3 miles of which 2.6 miles were around the Lake of the Isles. My ears friggin' hurt because it also happens to be 35 degrees outside and dropping to a low of 20 tonight. Tuesday night will be the worst as it's dropping to 10 degrees that night. Me so coldy. I'll be up in Houston on Thursday night so if you're in town call me!Here are some Minneapolis lake stats that I may look at whenever spring finally finds its way up here. Brrrr!
Cedar Lake: 1.68 miles Lake of the Isles: 2.60 miles Nokomis: 2.70 miles Lake Harriet: 2.75 miles Lake Calhoun: 3.10 miles
jolene
2006.03.18 19.35
Listen to the Sisters of Mercy cover of Johnny Cash's Jolene. The Sisters are now my new favorite old band that should have been my new favorite new band 20 years ago. Geez, has that much time gone by? It doesn't feel like it cuz I look good. :-)why is it so bright in here?
2006.03.18 15.17
I'm back from my five day training trip in Chicago. I now know all about JSR 168 web portal architecture. This is a technology that breaks up parts of web pages into ''portlets.'' It's good times all around. At least now I know *exactly* what I'm going to be doing for the rest of the year.I didn't get to explore Chicago much outside of touring downtown for a couple of hours. I did spot a few locations from The Blues Brothers, so that was cool. I'm back in Minneapolis once again and I'm on the cusp of running around one of the two lakes near me. I'll hit up Calhoun Beach Club on Sunday to get some workout time in. I haven't decided if I'm going to join that place or not. They try to lure you with the social activity stuff but I'm not sure I'm going to buy into it. They try to do the same thing with church -- and church is cheaper! So, yeah, workout tomorrow. Biceps, triceps and chest. Then back and shoulders on Monday night. Cardio on Tuesday. I should really make a schedule for this. Winging it doesn't work. I'll have to work in some social activity in there someplace.
I'm trying to speak with a proper British accent as often as possible. I'm using the BBC WorldNews show to practice. I've pulled it off so far this weekend with people at Best Buy, Petsmart, and Taco Bell. The trick is not laughing at yourself or succumbing to feeling embarassed. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this newfound ability. My "mum" claims she can't tell that I'm speaking with an accent. Whatever! My next podcast, however, will be totally British accented. Just watch.
I'm addicted to SIRIUS channel 22 -- First Wave. If you have the means, I highly recommend it.
the superman stormtrooper
2006.03.08 19.59
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