In preparation for a life of taking 17 units at school, working regularly, and staying married, I’m thinking of preserving this blog in static HTML (the online equivalent of Lucite), cutting WAY back on my blogging, and moving the stuff I do post over to LiveJournal. Dumping this webhost would save me $300/year, which [...]
One of the few benefits of registering with OfficeTeam is that you get to take Microsoft Office certification exams for free (they normally cost $75 each, and there are four of them). Which I did this morning, so I guess now I’m a certified Microsoft Office Specialist. Good thing I didn’t print any [...]
Well, I’ve gone and done it, and now I’m committed: I sent an email to almost everyone I know in Portland.
(I’m done trying to be a consultant-slash-student.)
So I had to call the unemployment office to restart my claim today. Because I told them I’d been self-employed since the last time I claimed, I get to fill out some questions and send them back before they’ll give me any money.
I just took a look, and during the period they’re interested in [...]
I just got the second phone call which consisted of an automated message saying “this is an important message for [pause] John [pause] Scully. To retrieve this message, press 9, or call us back at 800-622-8039.”
The first time I got it, I just hung up. This time, I pressed 9 and got… nobody. [...]
I just got home from math class to discover that my sweetie’s changed the desktop wallpaper again. Which is usually fine, because otherwise I just forget, but now I’m looking at the face of a baby who’s not even related to me. Aren’t there laws against that sort of thing? (=
This shirt from ThinkGeek made me groan while laughing, which is not an easy thing to do. (It says “Don’t make me roll initiative!” and if you don’t get it, consider yourself blessed.)
Note to people taking notes for gift ideas: I DO NOT WANT THIS SHIRT. But that doesn’t stop it from [...]
In the spirit of the original McSweeney’s Possible Follow-Up Songs For One-Hit Wonders, which in turn inspired more people to write the same, I present my additions to the list:
I’m Lonely; Would You Mind Dragging My Heart Around Some More?
Give Me My Breath Back, Which You Had Previously Taken Away
God: Possibly Still One Of Us
Feel [...]
I normally avoid engaging the political rhetoric of the day, but Justin sent me a news story with a few quotes from George II that I simply could not pass up:
“The enemy declared war on us,” [Bush] told a re-election rally. “Nobody wants to be the war president. I want to be the peace [...]
The Orange, Benjamin Rosenbaum, is a stunning short story. It’s so short it could almost qualify as a poem.
While copyrighted in 2001, it’s available under a Creative Commons license, meaning I can copy the entire thing and repost it here:
The Orange
by Benjamin Rosenbaum
An orange ruled the world.
It was an unexpected thing, the temporary [...]
Excel’s Autocorrect feature, which as far as I’m concerned is one of the least useful features ever, has apparently been known to corrupt data used in genetic research. Apparently it converts strings that randomly look somewhat like dates into actual dates, lops off digits in floating-point values, and so on.
Which is all very sad, [...]
So after my brother came up and helped us with some home improvements a few weeks ago, I used the vacuum cleaner to suck up the dust piles created by sawing through drywall. Turns out drywall dust is extremely chalky and Not Good For Vacuum Cleaners.
So, frustrated today with its lack of suction power, [...]
Just got an amazing video link via the Portland jugglers list: Jonglage avec un stylo (10MB WMV file). Which, if my rusty French is correct, translates approximately to “geeks screwing around with pens and pencils in front of their webcams.”
Flippancy aside, this is some really impressive, inspiring stuff that almost makes me want [...]
If I ever decide to jump web hosts again, HostM.com has an impressive-sounding deal with 1200MB of storage and 50GB of transfer for a measly $8/month, and they say they support Python. Which is 2x what I pay for dr2.net, but way more than twice what I get.
Hmm… actually, if I drop midtown.net at [...]
I so don’t need a CD/DVD shredder from ThinkGeek, especially not at upwards of $40, especially when $5 at a garage sale will get me a perfectly good used microwave…
To look at later: ZTree, a Win32 clone of the venerable XTree file management utility. Not sure if this is worth getting used to, given how much work I still do on other people’s PCs, but I’ll at least check it out; XTree was a program way ahead of its time.
[UPDATE: And now [...]
We went out for an evening constitutional to look at a bunch of gardens, and came home with a free cooking utensil. Score!
We left the 5-in-1 waxer/polisher/floor thingy there, though.
Hey, Justin, how do you care for a wok again?
Dorky-looking, but supposedly extremely comfortable shoes.
So two of my domains are hosted at a place that costs 40 bucks a year. This domain, on the other hand, costs me 25 bucks a month. One of the things that keeps me from moving over is the fact that I wrote my own blogging system in ASP, and my cheap [...]
After making some wild guesses about the existence of 75 custom-painted black iPods, Joel Johnson of Gizmodo had this priceless bit of cultural commentary:
My guess? I think the original iPods were black, and then were later changed to white, just like they did to Jesus.