Fri, 27 Jan 2006
Chillin' In San Antonio
I got in safe and sound yesterday. I'm chillin' for a few days at my parents' house. I should say, it's their new house. New old house. They moved down to the King Wiliam neighborhood. I really really like the new place. It's great and it has a lot of character. It's also bigger than I thought it was from the picture I was sent. [pic] I'll take a lot of other pictures and load them up to the site. Last night we went to El Mirador (one of my faves) for dinner. And we could've walked- they live that close. We had a great dinner and came back and sat on the front porch of the house until late just chatting - and well, my mom had bought me a cigar, so I had a post-dinner cigar and a beer on the porch. You can't tell from the above picture, but there's a pretty large built-in sofa/couch along the left hand rail of the front porch. It's quite comfy. Mmmm vacation. More later. . . . 27 Jan 13:29 | /travel/tx | 0 comment(s)
Wed, 25 Jan 2006
Madge
I was just rocking out w/ my ass-kicking noise-cancellation headphones. Then Hung Up came on. I couldn't remember which Abba song she sampled (it's Gimme Gimme), so I was googlin' and saw this hilarious mini-review on amazon for the song's video:
DAMN! DID YOU SEE THE VIDEO?, December 10, 2005Oh, I mean a friend was listening to Madonna, not me.. . . 25 Jan 18:53 | /rants_and_raves | 0 comment(s)
Reviewer: wally gator "the only" (USA) - See all my reviews
I taped it on TV and now I just watch it over and over. Its basically The Madge shakin her sweet can around a gym and listening to a bad ass looking ghetto blaster. These are some of the best rump shots I have ever seen in a Madonna video, for sure!
The single is starting to creep its way into my sub conscience, due to I think, extensive viewing of the video. I have caught myself singing it in the shower, at work, having sex.... I'm starting to hear the song in my sleep, but thats ok because The Madge is there too, shakin' that sweet 47 year old can in my face.
Oh yeah, this is what its all about. "Time goes by... so slowly..."
Willie Rules!
Talk about a perfect day-- Last night I not only went to one of my favorite restaurants, but I got to see Willie at The Fillmore! \m/
Sorry about the blurry pics, I'm still not used to my new phone.
25 Jan 11:26 | /rants_and_raves | 0 comment(s)
Mon, 23 Jan 2006
Going to SA
I'll be heading to SA on Thursday. Chris Madrid's and El Mirador better be ready for me! 23 Jan 18:00 | /general | 0 comment(s)
Willie!
I'm going to see Willie Nelson tomorrow night. This time I'll be seeing him at The Fillmore, where hopefully the crowd will be more responsive than the tards in Berkeley. It should be a fun night! 23 Jan 17:52 | /rants_and_raves | 0 comment(s)
Thu, 19 Jan 2006
Laggin' n Slackin'
I keep meaning to write some decent updates, even some reviews, but work's been busy. I have a draft of a review for Layer Cake and an update about my lack of focus on my past few movie rentals, actually it's more of a rant, but I haven't finished them obviously. The rest of this update is random.... Chud.com story about Showtime dumping a Miike episode here - I love Miike. Wine: I finished off the last of my Tikal- and it's goooood. Keep an eye out for their stuff- it's in the $18-$24 range. Also, I tried a box of the Hardys Shiraz - it's not bad, and for $13.99 for 3 Liters (at BevMo) it's a great cheap drinker. There's only one negative- it's 3 liters! So, I'm still trying to finish this stuff off so I can get back to my cheap(er) Spanish wines. But if you're splitting the wine, or having a party, it's a great buy. Just for me in my apartment, not so much. I would like to try the other box wine from BevMo, but I'll have to plan something to make it worth my while. Also- I still have a few bottles of a nice mourvedre/grenache blend for sale/trade if any of you are interested. There are some good soccer games coming up too- US v Japan, US v Norway, Mexico v Norway, etc. I'll be at the US v Japan game, it's here in SF. I've been playing with Asterisk@Home for a while now. I really like it, and it's not too terribly hard to set up. I'd like to build a dedicated box to handle my calls though. For the time being I'm using an old 450+MHz P4 to test on. It handles it ok, but it's too loud to leave on 24/7. If you're interested in it, I'd recommend this guy's blog. Just keep in mind that he has a lot of custom contexts set up, it may break yours. Anway, I thought I'd ramble for just a bit, and now I feel better. Thanks. 19 Jan 13:38 | /general | 0 comment(s)
Mon, 16 Jan 2006
I Think I've Been Snookered
I'm filled with hate. I always have been, and I can't explain why. Oh well. One of the (many) things I've always hated has been html mail. Yuck. I've always used pine or mutt, or maybe Eudora back in the days at stic.net. Sure, I've played with other clients, and hated a lot of them - Outlook? Look Out! And I think because of the mutt/pine history/usage, I've always had a preference for plaintext messages. They're smaller in size, they're easier to read, I could go on. If someone sent an image in some email to me, it was called an attachment, and it usually had something to do with the body of the message. Perhaps a chart of a stock in a financial newsletter email, maybe some porn image from a friend. But usually not some crappy malformed invalid email bs. But in the past year, html mail may have snookered me. You see, I've been using RSS readers more and more in the past year. Well, mostly just firefox, but still. Using it helps me weed out the blogs/news I don't need to be reading and helps me realize which ones I really like. As I was weeding out some of the ones I don't like, I realized that in a way, some rss feeds are nothing more than glorified html mail. I've been had. Sure, I can alter the settings on how it's displayed and that in turn helps me realize which blogs/sites are set up better than others and gets me focused back on the content in turn. But I think I've been had. . . Uggh 16 Jan 18:17 | /tech | 0 comment(s)
Misirlou
Hrm. Who knew? 16 Jan 17:49 | /links | 0 comment(s)
Wed, 11 Jan 2006
Frey's a Liar? Who knows...
You know, Oprah's bookclub is a behemoth. If bookstores were the NYSE, her recommendations would affect buying like institutional investors do when they buy up stock- that's a bad analogy- but what I mean is that there's a limit that the institutions can buy because they could make or break companies even if they're just buying a small percentage. Okay, my analogy is getting worse, but the point is, Oprah recommended that weirdo's book a while back. The one that the weirdo (FTBSITTTD!) said was all true. Oprah recommending a book = massive sales. Massive. So it turns out that all may no be what is seems. The Smoking Gun has a pretty interesting article about the situation here. Normally I just check TSG for funny mugshots, but when they do real articles, they do them well. So what's my point? I'm not sure. I just think Oprah's Book Club is a weird beast that plods through people's lives. But hey, at least she's getting people to read. If I were an author and her group picked my book. . I'd be ecstatic- but admittedly for financial reasons primarily and the security of knowing that my publisher would probably be willing to pick up my next book (or two). But I'd have to be careful. I wouldn't want to pull a Franzen (more).
It was after the Oprah show aired that TSG first took a look at Frey. We had simply planned to track down one of his many mug shots and add it to our site's large collection. While Frey offers no specific details about when and where he was collared, the book does mention three states where he ran into trouble: Ohio, Michigan, and North Carolina. While nine of Frey's 14 reported arrests would have occurred when he was a minor, there still remained five cases for which a booking photo (not to mention police and court records) should have existed.11 Jan 13:52 | /links | 0 comment(s)
Mon, 09 Jan 2006
The Tower
09 Jan 15:43 | /general | 0 comment(s)
Thu, 05 Jan 2006
National Champions
Wow Houston Chronicle
PASADENA, Calif. . They won because they have the best player on earth. In the end, it's that simple.Washington Post
On a Night of Supernovas, A Lone Star Burns BrightestEspn.com article that Cory L sent me.
PASADENA, Calif. -- Moments before kickoff in the Rose Bowl, the referee's microphone inadvertently picked up five salty words (from somebody) for all of America to hear. They aptly foretold the entire night:
"Do you believe that [expletive]?"
05 Jan 15:15 | /general | 0 comment(s)
Tue, 03 Jan 2006
The New Ugly Americans
not to keep bringing this up- but it seemed timely (plus I know the author)
'Ugly Americans' of Asia?"Bumpkins"? Ouch via USAToday.com - read the rest of the article, it's pretty interesting. 03 Jan 11:50 | /travel | 0 comment(s)
However, catering to China's newly rich has its downside, though most Thais are too polite to say so publicly. Just as brash Americans attract glances from Parisian sophisticates, Chinese tourists have acquired a reputation in Thailand and elsewhere in Southeast Asia as loud, pushy bumpkins with table manners that leave much to be desired.
Mon, 02 Jan 2006
2006
Well, 2006 is here. It's time for my usual two weeks of
