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11.29.05 The Supreme Court is falling apart. If that isn't ominous, I don't know what is. # 11.28.05 I'm really curious about dodgeball, but nobody I know is on it. And it wouldn't be worth having unless all of your friends were on it. Does anyone use the service? # Apple's support site is now offering a "broadband tuner" application that will examine your highspeed connection and adjust your networking settings (specifically the MTU, which you shouldn't need to know anything about) to be optimized for your connection. Lots of system tweaking apps have offered this in the past, but never anything from Apple. Saw this at work today, so I haven't tried it out yet, but I'll report back once I have. (Also, I posted this from within digg, so the links at the bottom are not of my own doing. Let me know if it bothers anyone.) read more | digg story # 11.27.05 Someone has actually compiled a (very good, in content if not design) website devoted to historic Fresno. Not that anything great or glamourous happened in architecture in Fresno, but there's certainly some history there to explore. Really only fun if you know the area, I'm posting it more for my own future recollection than to actually believe that anyone here will be particularly interested. The Fresno entry in Wikipedia isn't too bad though. # A flash-game from greenpeace. Kill a Korean submarine, save a whale! Kinda fun. They don't tell you that you need to switch between the blue and pink whales. One makes bubbles and the other blows them to the surface. Also, I wonder if one of the colors of subs is North Korean and the other is South Korean? # 11.26.05 A growing bedbug problem spreads terror, humiliation and yes, even sex, across New York City. # 11.25.05 Some clever folks are working on a mozilla-based media player, a la iTunes. It's called songbird and it could be a very cool, open source media library solution. Not that I don't love iTunes, but a media player whose content isn't edited by a corporation is never ever a bad thing. And it looks like a nice, straight-forward application. And to the charges that the program looks too much like iTunes, the developers have a response. # 11.23.05 So I'm driving east on the 210 freeway (See how I called it "the" 210? That means I'm in Southern California.) this afternoon, and there's this motorcycle driving in front of me. The guy is wearing shorts, which only sort of terrifies me, and he keeps looking back over his shoulder at me. I'm a little puzzled by this, and I can only assume that I'm following him too closely for his comfort. So I give he guy an extra half a car length. But he's still looking back, and he's giving me longer and longer glances. So I back off some more. He looks again. I back off, then I just decide to change lanes. But he's still looking back, now at whomever is behind him again. I follow him, just a little behind, in the next lane over, because I want to figure out what's happening. Then, kind of slowly, he looks back behind him, then lifts his left leg up a little, glances forward, and climbs off of his seat. Right there, cruising down the freeway at 60 miles an hour, in relative traffic, the guy climbs over the motorcycle and throws his left leg out, perpendicular to the bike, and kind of does this modified at-speed acrobatic move. And he holds it, maybe 10 seconds or so. Then he climbs back into the bike, looks in the mirror and speeds away. I don't understand Los Angeles. Who wears shorts on a motorcycle? # Despite initial promises to the contrary, the Bush Administration has reinstated an old Regan-era policy that restricts AIDS relief funding. The policy denies aid to organizations that provide services, counseling, referrals and information on abortion, even when those services are funded from non-governmental moneys. It's a clear reversal from the policy outlined when Bush laid out his plan for AIDS relief funding to Africa. Actually, it's a bald-faced lie. Who's surprised? # 11.22.05 So I went and saw this band tonight, Tom Vek, with Kate and Jen. And color me impressed. They were pretty cool. Inventive, to say the least. A lot of influences, fairly well integrated. A little Depeche Mode on the album, they band really kicked up the bass and got rocky live, and I really enjoyed the outcome. A track from the album is posted on the right. I know I've heard it somewhere before tonight; your challenge, dear reader, is to help me figure out where. # 11.21.05 New Pornographers makes me dance, almost anytime almost anywhere. Is that news? # 11.14.05 I've recently started to give in to a secret compulsion to fix things. It's developed into a bit of a habit recently, a sort of nervous tic I suppose. Likely it's been irritating my friends, who are just too nice to say anything. Within a few minutes of entering a room, I find myself sizing things up, looking for pictures that need straitening, drawer handles that need tightening, faucets that are leaking, tables that are wobbly. At first I caught myself doing it. I recognized the social awkwardness, the outright obnoxious geekery of it, and curbed the impulse. But it's almost a tidal force, and after so much resistance, I simply break free of my own restrictions. I'm sure you could (and will, and are) read into this some kind of recovery psychology. I mean, it's totally obvious. But I'll make my case on the grounds of propriety and necessity. The broken lamp needs to be fixed. The rubber weight grip at the gym needs to be put back onto the weight. I might have seen these little things two, three, or five times. I waited, and nobody else fixed them. Sure, it's probably someone else's job, but they're clearly not doing it, so why can't I? It's not some solve the world's problems idealism masking itself in these little mundane fixit's (although I could see you going there). It comes from a deeper desire to find satisfaction in simple mechanical solutions. Something I'm sure that I picked up from my father. Luckily for me, my friend's apartments are all starting to look a little more tidy and a little less worthy of my handyman aspirations. Whether that's through my own doing or their quiet efforts to keep me away from their stuff, I couldn't tell you. # 11.12.05 After so much struggle, Fox has finally killed Arrested Development, for the last time. What hope have we now for the future of television? Repeats of Prison Break? Let's hope Comedy Central performs another miracle a la Family Guy and picks up the funniest show ever. # 11.07.05 google local mobile is very, very cool. And very user friendly. Could be faster on my phone but I suspect it would sing on a treo. Only word of warning is that it's 1.) slow and 2.) bandwidth hungry. Don't bother playing with this if you're on a pay-per-K plan with your mobile provider. # 11.06.05 Clever people with T-shirt ideas unite! Right around the corner from my apartment, a little custom apparel shop opened up called My Trick Pony. Right next door to Amber, for those of you in the hood. Didn't get much of a presentation when I went in, but the general idea, I think, is that you can bring your design to them and they'll put it on a shirt, as a transfer, airbrush, spraypaint, silkscreen, embroidery or whatever. And according to the dude who was working there this afternoon, they also host monthly openings where a small price of admission gets you a custom t-shirt from the opening and all you can drink. A hipster's graphic paradise. # 11.05.05 One of the unanticipated downsides of living alone is that there's no one here to talk to when you wake up from a really bad dream. # « October 2005 | archive index | December 2005 » built with movabletype |
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