I heard on the radio about The Smoking Gun exposing some pictures of a contestant on the Joe Millionaire show. Apparently she had done some light bondage movies a few years ago “to put herself through law school”, but forgot to mention this to the show’s producers. Now, there’s nothing wrong with a little kink, but you have to ask yourself, in this day and age, when nothing is secret anymore, why would she not mention this before she was on the show? I’m willing to accept the answer “She went on the show knowing somebody would find out, and this would catapult her acting/modeling career,” or maybe “She never expected to get as far on the show as she did (the final three),” or even “She told the producers and they kept it quiet, hoping somebody would find out to boost ratings for the show,” but could anybody possibly be that stupid?
In doing a little more searching, I found an even better option for keeping our two Pismos in service longer: PowerLogix has a service where they will replace your 400 or 500MHz G3 with an 800MHz G3. From what the benchmarks say, the performance is better by far (in some cases double that) of a 500MHz G4. (this does not take into account the Altivec optimized applications that are slowly being rolled out by software companies.) It seems to get good reviews as well; some of the reviews I’ve read about the Newer offerings are less than stellar—problems with return times and unit malfunctions are nothing to take lightly.
Finally, in the last of the geek news, the EtherPrint arrived today, and I found to my dismay it did not include an RJ-45 connector, just BNC and AUI connectors. I tracked down an AUI to RJ-45 transciever for the low price of $15 on Amazon, so that should come next week. Still, we’re at a total of $47 total for the printer, which I still think is a great deal.
I have a check deposited in my account for a freelance job I did back in November. I’ve been earmarking this money for a new iPod since the job was completed. Now that I have it, I’m reconsidering the purchase—are there better things I could spend the money on?
building1, 3dmax, 1.28
Today I’m listening to an older album (1990) by an English band called the La’s. They were famous for about ten minutes that year for a song called “There She Goes”. (You have probably heard a butchered version covered by some other band a few years back.) I came into the album from my best friend Stas’s brother Chris, who had gotten it from somewhere and disliked it (he was deep in a Metallica phase, I think) and he gave it to me. I put it aside for the summer, being deep in a metal phase myself, and picked it up that fall—perfect timing for a melancholy season leading into winter in Baltimore. Think of good Sixties harmonies, catchy riffs, and acoustic guitars in a Beatles vibe, totally separate from the Manchester sound pouring out of Britain that same year.
I just read that Cannondale, the esteemed company that built my mountain bike, is filing for voluntary Chapter 11. While their bicycle business is making a profit (barely), the motorsports division took a 7mil loss last year. The bicycle division will continue as usual, but the motorsports division may get sold off.
I’m going to attempt to get Kung-Tunes working on this page. Stay tuned.
I bought a Dayna EtherPrint off eBay this morning, in the hopes that I can get the amazing $7 printer working at Jen’s house this week. I also got the second half of the RAM for the LaserWriter 630, so that will be installed tonight.
We caught up with our friends Rob and Karean this weekend, inviting them over for a SuperBowl dinner and drinks. It was good to catch up with them both, because we’ve been playing phone tag since Christmas. They are bitten by the same bug we are right now—the pull to move out of the city is strong, and the recent tax hike is an even stronger incentive. With its dwindling population and shrinking tax base, the city government is putting the squeeze on folks like me—my assessment just doubled.
I spent the first part of this evening milling and installing new doorjambs in the kitchen/dining room with the new compound miter saw. Let me just say again, it is so much nicer to work with the right tools.
We are laying on the warm bed with the fourth quarter of the Superbowl playing between our feet. Jen is sewing a bed for the cats with yarn and chamois and trying to ignore my goofy new haircut by telling me she loves me. Teller is asleep between her feet, oblivious to the Raiders getting schooled behind him. Penn is downstairs somewhere, probably on the hassock, his belly full of tuna.
So Jen, myself, and probably every Young Urban Professional in a 300 mile radius of Baltimore City got an innocuous little postcard from Restoration Hardware, that purveyor of incredibly beautiful, retro, and stylish home furnishings. They were having a warehouse sale of all the stuff they haven’t been able to sell (and, let’s face it, when you charge $2,300 for an oak dresser out of a mall storefront, you’re not moving a ton of merchandise) and I think that they had the most successful return on direct-mail ever. We showed up at 7:15 and had to fight our way into the parking lot. By the time we entered the main warehouse and weaved through the throngs of people, the place had been picked over pretty well, but we found a chair that had been marked down to $500. (Check the site. It glibly sugests to “buy a pair!”) After hemming and hawing, and placing a ‘hold’ on it, we headed back to the house to grab the Scout, but we realized that there was no way we could return before the doors were closed. Retiring to our favorite restaurant, we consoled ourselves with plenty of DeGroen’s and filet. Walking through our new favorite antique store today, we found a retro black armchair for the kingly sum of $80 with our names on it.
Courtesy of iTunes’ station listings, I found a great online streaming radio service: SomaFM. I especially like the programming on this channel.
I’m currently coming down off a massive caffeine and sugar high; unfortunately I brought an entire 16-oz mug of coffee into work to keep myself warm, and wound up drinking it all (to keep warm.) By 11 I was trying to ignore the buzzing in my ears, and by noon I had a throbbing headache. About 3 I was in a deep sugar crash and fighting to stay awake. Boy, I can’t wait until summer again.
This American Life. Tonight I have my choice of programming on network TV: A sitcom about a gay man and a straight woman who are having a baby together; a drama featuring fictionalized, glamorous forensic investigators in Las Vegas; a standard family-oriented sitcom starring Damon Wayans; a show pitting an alaskan bear and a Japanese man in a timed contest to eat the most hot dogs, and a “reality show” featuring, among others, Webster, the uptight chick from 90120, one of the Coreys (does it really matter which?) and Vince Neil, who comes off as a pudgy, sleeve-tattooed version of your uncle Bob. Vince Neil. Mr. “Shout At The Devil.”
(What did I do? I’ll tell you. I turned it off.)
Has anybody noticed that it’s now a wiser (and in some ways, more respectable) decision to do a layout in Playboy than to appear on a “reality show” to Boost A Flagging Career? Somebody should really start calling around to the PR people in Hollywood and pass that memo along. (Tootie, Baldwin Brothers, Coolio- this means you.)
After a four-year dependency, I’m moving away from the usage of a blind HTML page on my site as a bookmark site; every morning when I wake my Powerbook from sleep (or boot my PC workstation at the office) all my browsers point to the same page. This way I avoid migrating troublesome bookmark files from one browser/platform/version to another, and I don’t spend days formatting them to fit my peculiar workflow. With the advent of Safari as my main browser, and its beautiful method of organizing bookmarks, I’m slowly migrating all my favorite links into the browser.
The financial planning meeting went very well, and I left with one very important goal: Sell the house. Fix it, clean it, paint it, sell it. Quickly.
Today is Old-School Van Halen Day. Fair Warning: Women And Children First. (the latter is also nominated for the title of Best Rock Album Cover.)
Happy 30th Anniversary, Roe V. Wade. Ladies and Gentlemen, please consider your rapidly dwindling rights as an American citizen and support the 1973 decision. Please don’t let a group of old white men dictate women’s rights.
Another example of how real creative people think. I’ve not taken a lot of pictures these days because it seems like the only time I see the world is when I’m in the car, driving to or from work. And that’s a pretty boring stretch of road. Michael Sippey found a way to make the situation a little more interesting, from a west coast perspective.
Tomorrow I’m meeting with my accountant/financial planner at the early morning hour of 9:00 to discuss how I’m going to be able to do all the things I want to do this year: Buy a house in the county, buy a ring for Jen, put more money into savings/IRA and afford a used car. Perhaps it’s serendipity then, that we’re getting paid for the first time in January tonight. My homework is to gather all my tax information, make a list of goals over the next five years, and tally my invoices to see what kind of a hit I’m taking on taxes this year. Pray for me, friends.
Hmm. Doing my daily weblog scan, I found a link, via Dominey, to a blog on AirPort, and from there a link testing the new 802.11G wireless standard (“AirPort Extreme” falls in this category.) Good info for the day when I get an iMac in the office and set it up as the base station/server for the house, so that Jen and I can work from any room without tripping over the cables. (I wired the whole house for Cat-5 two years ago, right before wireless took off.) With the promise of some incoming freelance money, this will become reality soon.
I also found a link to this service, offered thorugh OWC by Newer, to upgrade Pismo PowerBooks to a 500mhz G4. At some point this year, I think we will take advantage of the offer, as we own two Pismos and probably won’t be buying any new hardware this year.
Guilty Pleasure Dept.: Fametracker. Grab a beer, pull up a chair, and sink your teeth into this one. Great writing, and everything you want from a publication about celebrities but never get. *cough* InStyle *cough* *cough* People *cough*