Category: Uncategorized

So� yesterday I had left my laptop in my car. I guess there is a longish untold story about how the upgrade to 10.2.5 killed my laptop, but I�ll just leave it at that. Point is, bringing it to the apple store is on my list of things to do, and that�s why it was in the car. Over the course of the day, I thought a couple of times about how I shouldn�t have left it in the car.

I didn�t end up finding time to go to the apple store, and came right home after work to hang out with a friend and go to unicycle practice. The friend was already here, and I came inside, bringing my laptop with me, leaving, as I always do, my mp3 playing diskman in the car, where it�s lived since Laura bought it for me about six months ago.

In the 45-minute interval that I was inside, someone smashed in my passenger side window and took the diskman. Fortunately, they didn�t take any of the (count them) THREE CD carrying case thingies that were strewn randomly around the car. (There is usually only one, but everyone who went on the trip to Chicago this last weekend brought their own, and nobody took them from the car.)

I wish I knew what CD was in the diskman. I�m afraid that it was Radiohead�s Kid-A, which is one of my all-time favorite albums, and I only just recently found in Laura�s CD carrying case thingy after thinking it was lost for ages. Obviously, the window is going to cost more to replace than the diskman. (I only have liability. I�m going to call today about it, but I have the suspicion that it doesn�t cover glass or theft.)

After the discovery, I called the police, who showed up fairly promptly, and filed a �statistical� report of the theft. (She was straightforward about how little they could do in a case like this.) I didn�t end up going to unicycling, and instead we watched Spirited Away, which Nate recently purchased on DVD.

I guess the whole point about the laptop is obvious enough. I sure am glad I brought it in with me when I got home. (Despite the fact that currently it�s a fifteen-hundred dollar paperweight.)

This morning, just before I woke up, I dreamt I was teaching someone to play chess.

I am just reprinting (reblogging?) my comment over on meghan’s post about love and sneezing which evolved into a discussion about what emotions make the best art.

There were pieces snipped from the beginning and end of the comment that were only relevent to the discussion at the time. Art is, obviously, something I’ve given a lot of thought to. It’s interesting, because earlier in the discussion, when it was still about love, the point was made that there are really a lot of different kinds of love, and that it feels like it’s different for everybody. (Even though there may only be six kinds, according to one link in the thread!) Art is probably the same way. It’s so different for different people that it feels totally subjective. Maybe it is, or maybe… maybe there are only six kinds!

[click below to read my comment if you haven’t already read it]
Continue reading “art and pain”

Last night I won a round of Baroque Chess against a guy in the office who used to play it in college. It definitely makes for an interesting game, and is WAY different than chess, that’s for sure.

A bunch of the guys here at work (and a couple of the ladies, on occasion) and I have taken to playing chess, go, and Tic-Tac-Check every day at lunch. (I’ve been getting way better at Go, which I’d only ever played once or twice before.)

Anyway, after work I went home and had “family night” with my dad and siblings. (The usual Thursday night activity.) I taught my dad tic-tac-check as I had been meaning to do for the last few weeks, and beat him soundly. (He was watching Much Ado About Nothing at the time, and was kinda distracted.) After the movie was over, and toward the end of the night, I challenged my dad to a game of regular chess…

Let me step back for a moment and give you some history. My dad taught me to play chess. Despite playing it fairly regularly (like once every couple of weeks for at least a year or two) I was never able to beat him unless he spotted me at least a couple of pieces. Usually he would spot me his queen, and still waste my ass.

So last night, about 9:30 (which is normally his bedtime), I beat my dad at chess in a fair match for what was, I think, the first time ever.

Christopher says this means I’m finally a man now. I don’t know how I feel about it, but I definitely find myself making excuses for him. (It was late, he wasn’t really focused, he hasn’t played in years…) It’s not that big a deal, really, I mean, it is just chess, after all.

I was reading Gabe Anderson’s blog, and saw that he has a page that he calls his Master Comments Archive. I would like a movable type plugin that would create said archive, but have it sortable by date/entry/commenter’s name. Wouldn’t that be cool?

Of course, I could always create an MT template that just has an entry tag with only the comments in it, but that page wouldn’t necessarily get updated when there are new comments, so this would have to use MT’s dynamic serving functionality… which I have no idea how to do. Still, I may tackle this myself, if I suddenly have too much free time.

Since I also happened to discover lazyweb.org today, I will post this thought there as well. I know I had other lazyweb posts over the past few months… maybe if I remember them I’ll post them there too.

This weekend is a juggling convention in a chicago suburb. It’s one I’ve never been to at least that I can remember,) and I’m warming up to the idea. I don’t get as excited about juggling as I used to, but a good festival is always good, and this’ll give me an excuse to introduce Laura to some of my relatives (the cool ones who live in Chicago).

It occurs to me that I’ve put off that rant about juggling for awhile now. I really have no excuse. I would write it now, but I’m at work, and therefor too distracted.

My laptop is booting to a blue screen. It’s almost like the mac-equivalent to the blue screen of death, but there’s not frustratingly incomprehensible error message. The hard drive just spins… and there’s no message at all.

I only mention the laptop because I was in the mood to write last night. I reached for the laptop (how I usually write…) but remembered the issue. Incidentally, the problem started when I made the recent upgrade to 10.2.5. I’ve done it successfully on at least two other machines, so I know that’s not the whole story, but it pisses me off, damnit. I may have to take the thing to the apple store tonight, but I have a couple of other things I want to try first. (I hate computer troubleshooting.)

I must now hype the new Faint remixes CD. If you like dance music and ear-throbbing-toe-tapping-electro, you’ll love this album. I do!

Ok so…

moving into random territory, I received nine complete sets of juggling scarves from a co-worker. Apparently they’d just been taking up space in a closet or something, and he figured I’d find some use for them.

also sent in my registration for convergence today. I was surfing their website and got all excited.

I *heart* sci-fi.

BTW, I’m going here sometime this weekend. Free bus ride home!

Mopsa’s post about weddings made me want to tell all my wedding stories. I have two. Total. I’ll spare you most of them though. Yes, I’ve only ever been to two weddings in my life. The first one I was a groomsman, and the second was only just this last weekend. Have I mentioned on here yet that I caught Laura looking at rings online the other night? She actually called me over to look at some of the ones she liked. Everyone but her insists this is some kind of hint. Of course she denies it.

Yesterday in the car my mom asked me if I’d done anything with my website lately. I guess it is her homepage (which I found kinda sweet, till she said that was because she didn’t know how to change it). I put up a link to thorsday from there today. There was an awkward moment (probably only for me) when I wanted to tell her about this, but didn’t.

Last night I picked up a bunch of new CDs. The most exciting one, (at least at the moment) is the first release from the umbrella sequence. They’re quite reminiscent of the last couple of radiohead albums… which is a good thing in my opinion. I’ve listened to the album twice this afternoon, and it’s great so far. I wish I’d made it to their CD release party, which was the 15th of last month or something.

I also picked up a pretty decent album of The Faint remixes, and yo la tengo’s latest. I need to listen to both of those more before I can comment authoritatively.

I’ve been looking through screenshots of eve: the second genesis, and damn does that game look (and sound like it’s going to be) cool.

I had been looking forward to Planetside, but for some reason it doesn’t look as cool as it did a year or so ago. They’re calling it the first MMOFPS now. I’ll have to at least try it out when it comes out, but I’m curious as to how different the game will be from non-subscription FPS games.

You can probably tell I’m chomping at the bit for a sci-fi MMORPG. I did try out Anarchy online when it came out last summer, but I had so many problems with the game I returned it in the first week. They had already collected my CC#, and kept charging it despite my repeated emails to their support people, and the assurance that my account was canceled. I eventually complained to my CC company, and got the # on my card changed as a result. I still don’t think the charges were ever reversed though. Bastards.

Anyway, by some strange coincidence, I had a conversation yesterday with one of the true Everquest addicts I know, and he’s recently quit! He’s sold all of his level 50+ characters, and swears off MMORPGs altogether. He says they’re just in the business of selling “timesinks”, every new expansion was just another way to waste your time. He’s probably right. I wonder if my cousin is still playing Asheron’s Call 2…

side note: mmorpg.com is actually pretty interesting, and does seem to have a fairly comprehensive list… It even included this weird and (I think) obscrure “A Tale In The Desert”, which doesn’t have any fighting, and apparently one of my co-workers has played before.

how come the Movable Type manual doesn’t document their RSS support? I’ve been trying to find some explainations for awhile now, and maybe I’m just looking in the wrong places, I don’t know. Some support forums have been helpful, but not anywhere near the level of detail I’d like.

What I really want is it broken down for me… here’s what RSS is, and here’s how we do it. bah.