How often do you see a Bentley at a Waffle House?
More cookies: Green-beret-wearing Frenchman in yellow snow; Art Deco trees, fission stars and the red-tipped filament star.
You know what they say about sleeping dogs... Yeah, you guessed it! They travel very well on car rides.
Well, in case you can't guess what our next project is going to be: it's laminate flooring time! Yep, we picked up 30 boxes of "Tundra" from IKEA last night. It was on sale ($29.99 a box, usually $38.99) and then we got a 35% discount on top of that with a special coupon! So yeah it was a steal.
We got our new Hard Livin' banner today!!! Props to BJ for the graphical work. Thanks to Kim for modeling. :)
Sorry about the lack of posts. I shall have something to say on Friday. Promise.
This video has been floating around the 'net for a while, I guess, but it's way cool. Somebody took the time to recreate Michael Jackson's Thriller video scene for scene. Check it out!
A very interesting look at WWI color photography, also early photos of Czarist Russia. Very cool.
Link provided by Josh.
These photos were purchased by the Library of Congress and are on display!
Ok, I realize you have no idea what this is, but I was in a store today, Christmas shopping (as you might've guessed). As I checked out, the woman behind me placed her selections on the counter. She was dressed in some strange sort of leather/blond wig extensions/fake nails conglomerate that made me notice her - but not in a good way.
Anyway, her selections for purchase: clear tape ($0.99), and a VHS copy of Queen of the Damned ($5.99). That's like combining a socket wrench set and toothpaste.
Ok, I know you can't read it, but somebody took individual letter stickers and put this in the center of the rear window:
Get in
sit down
shut up
buckle up
hold on.
Car in the parking lot of a relatively decent mall. I will have more pics of this car to post, and boy is it worth it!!
Earlier I was pining about the lack of decent Christmas faux-trees at a reasonable price. Luckily I was out and about yesterday evening (as BJ can attest), and at our local Hobby Lobby I found a nice tree at 33% off!
So, here's our tree. Granted, the day-time picture doesn't capture the glory and grandeur of a fully decorated plastic tree, but it will have to suffice for the next, oh 8 hours or so.
In case you're wondering, it's 9 feet tall (!!), so no I didn't put the star exactly on the top because I couldn't reach it (perhaps I'll get some scaffolding next year). We're pretty happy with it and for the price you can't beat it. Of course Hobby Lobby will probably have it for about 75% off in a few weeks, but this is what we call poor planning - something of which we aren't usually guilty (not).
This advanced tip makes it possible to run Firefox from removable media, such as a USB memory stick. This will allow you to run Firefox with your personal settings from any computer, even those that don't have Firefox installed. It has only been tested on Windows XP/2000. The basic instructions are as follows:
1. Copy the Firefox application folder and your profile folder to the removable medium. In this example we will use R:\Firefox for the application folder and R:\FFProfile as the profile folder, assuming the drive letter for the removable media is R:.
2. Create a simple batch file called R:\Firefox.bat with the following line:
start \Firefox\firefox.exe -profile \FFProfile
3. Optionally, disable the disk cache to reduce the amounts of file writes to the removable storage by entering about:config in the address field of Firefox and set browser.cache.disk.enable to false.
The reason why a batch file is needed instead of a simple shortcut is that a shortcut uses absolute paths, and since the actual drive letter for the removable media may change depending on which computer it is plugged into, the relative path used in the batch file is guaranteed to work anywhere.
I'm in love with Google Reader. One web based app. No toting around apps or files on a thumb drive. Access anywhere. Slick interface. Ahhhh!
Now all they need to do is link people's reader lists together via tags a la del.icio.us, and then you've got yourself a killer app.
Derek Trucks Band + Susan Tesdeschi Band = Night of Blues Power
0 comments Posted by Andy at 10:27 AMI have four tickets to the Dec 31 show at Variety Playhouse here in Atlanta. I can't go, so I need to unload the tickets. $39 each. Come & get 'em.
Why is it so hard to find a decent artificial Christmas tree? I want a prelit tree, with cool needles (not the plastic strip kind) and it needs to look at least half-real. I'm not into killing trees for two weeks of pleasure.
I'm sure you've all heard Robert Tilton, the farting preacher, aka Pastor Gas. Well, I just figured I'd grab a few of these movies and make them available. I've found 2 through 5, but I'm missing number 1... help me out if you can find it!
I have to say, I think 2 and 4 are pretty good. What is also interesting is that you can see he's making some coin through this, because the quality of his coiffure has increased, as has the quality of his sets and video overlays. Oh, and he's also starting "speaking in tongues" round about video 4...
Yet another Chihuahua riding in the rear deck. What's up with these dogs and their owners?
Yeah I know, it's all so l33t, but I'd been planning a new PC build for some time. I've been using the same rig for about 6 years, and I though I'd graduate to something with a least a bit of chic. My old rig (which went through several reincarnations) was based in a 2½' tall case, which sported room for two power supplies, 6 5¼" drive bays, 2 external 3½" bays and 4 internal 3½" bays. Needless to say it was quite a beast. And it was on casters. :)
At any rate, I did my a trip to Microcenter to pick up some pieces parts, and what you see here is the fruit of an afternoon's labor. Interestingly, the motherboard I picked happens to have quite a few UV-reactive parts built onto the board as well as covering some of the cables. I need to see about getting a black light put into the case to see what that does. ;) And no, I didn't intent to go all colorized, but the case I picked had a window and included some fans that were lit, so I added the tri-color cold cathode tubes for effect (it was only $4, so what the hell, eh?)
Also a first for me is having a RAID system. Two 100GB 7200RPM SATA drives running mirrored at the moment, plus a GFX card based on the nVidia GeForce 6800 chipset, *and* the mobo is a DFI Lanparty nF4, which also sports nVidia chipsets. I'm actually quite impressed with the quality of the Lanparty and nVidia components. I'm used to barely-there manuals with little to offer for software control, but this combination is built for the enthusiast: all sorts of BIOS tweak parameters, decent software bundle, and it looks cool too.
Now off to find a nitrogen chiller unit... just kidding. Maybe.
We're playing tonight up at Padriac's from about 9pm to 1ish. See you there!!
The Pimpotel lobby in the morning. Strangely empty...
You know you're in a quality hotel when it has an "intimacy kit" in the minibar.
MAKE magazine just rawks! As you might've read, I donated my latest copy of MAKE 04 to some local Miamians. So, I emailed MAKE to see if I could get a replacement:
Dear Mr. Little,
Thank you for your message, we are sending you a free replacement copy of Make: Volume #4. Please allow one week for delivery.
Make Subscriber Services
My original message:
Dear Make,
I am absolutely enamored with your magazine. I've been a
subscriber since the first day Make's conception was announced to the public. I'm writing to inform you that I recently suffered a devstating loss after receiving Make 04. I had to make a trip down to Miami, and during my trip
my backpack was stolen from the trunk of my car. Among the casualties were a laptop, iPod (hacked, natch), GPS, charging units, Bluetooth receivers and *gasp* my fresh, unread copy of Make 04. I sorely miss it, and haven't been
able to replace it. Could you possibly help a hacker out?Make it or Break it,
C.A. Little
Atlanta, GA
Actually I really can't say that. I've been using my Treo 650 for email and messaging for some time now. But, truthfully my employers bestowed upon me a Crackberry two days ago. Ihave to say I kinda like it.
I'm not entirely enamored with the operating system and UI: the click wheel is annoying when you're used to tapping. It might be improved if you could hit 'e' for email and 'c' for compose instead of scrolling through a dozen or so icons.
And then there's the foldering. I maintain my email in folders - doing so on Crack (berry) isn't the easiest thing to do, and setting up email filters is practically nonexistant. Perhaps after some fiddlin' about with it I'll come up with something, but for now I'm on Crack.
PS I wrote this on Crack.
You may have noticed my previous post, Writing Letters to Corporate Goobs, Part 1 in which I wrote a letter to a corporate goob at Ferrara Pan candy company. Well, here's the response:
Dear Mrs. Bailey,
We have asked several people at our company if Gummy Bears can cause Diarrhea and the answer to your question is no. There is no ingredient in our Gummy Bears that would cause Diarrhea or symptoms. One reason could be that you are eating too many and it is upsetting your stomach. The green gummies are lime flavored and the yellow are lemon. I would think that the pizza and the Popcorn and the Gummies together may cause gas. I hope this helps. Please let us
know if you have any other questions.Sincerely,
Ferrara Pan Candy Co.
This is just priceless. More to come!
This is the first in my new series of Writing Letters to Corporate Goobs, where I'll be writing letters to Corporate Goobs. Basically, you can write letters to corporate goobs, and they'll occasionally write back, and it's occasionally funny! Dear Sir or Madam, Thank you,
My first letter is to the Ferrara Pan Candy Company, manufacturer of Black Forest Gummy Bears and other candies.
Here's the letter
I just wanted to let you know that I have enjoyed eating Black ForestGummy Bears in the 5lb. bag. My husband and I purchase these from the local BJ's wholesale club and we are in love with these Gummies! My husband is a bit strange about it though, he will not eat the yellow and green gummies. Is there something different in the flavorings of these? I cannot tell a difference and I would love to know what the difference is between the yellow and green gummies and the rest of the bag.
Incidentally, I think you should know that, while we eat these gummies all the time, there are occasionally issues we encounter and I'm wondering if it's the gummies that are causing them. Let's just put this delicately and say that there are "digestion" issues that my husband has sometimes, and I usually notice these problems after we watch movies at home. We always do movies on Friday night and have pizza, popcorn and a bag of gummies. I am usually fine, but have occasional gas. My husband on the other hand tends to get diarrhoea (am I spelling that right?). Is this something to do with eating too many gummies, or is my husband just sensitive? I'd hate to have to tell him "no" on gummies! Please help!
Mrs. Bailey
Red shag carpet in the lobby of our hotel:
The Catalina Hotel - Redefining Europimp Style
It's rather disconcerting to enter your hotel room aftermidnight, and the red light is on. Consider: the remainder of the room is all white. Oh, the books on the mantel rail? "America" and "Tashante's American Pinups". Truly swank, in the greasiest sense of the word. I forgot to mention there is actually a playa pimp on the cover of "America". Wow.
For those of you who watch, Trading Spouses is a show where two families exchange a parental unit for a week, get filmed, and get $50,000. During that week, the exchanged units have to learn about their host families - enough to figure out how to disburse the $50,000 that each familiy will win. Yep, the twist is that the families expect to get the money in a lump sum, but in reality the funds are allocated by the exchanged unit.
I've seen a few of the shows - enough to know that the producers will inevitably pair up two entirely different households in order to create, uh, tension. For example - a high-powered NYC attorney switches places with a farmer from Georgia.
So, can you imagine the hijinks when the exchanged units return to their respective homes to reveal to their families the $50,000 twist. So, imagine the hilarity when a "bible-thumper" switches places with what I assume is a household that practices Wicca. Yep, it could be pretty damn funny. And it is. Here is the video of Thumper's return to her home and family. Enjoy.
The view never changes if you're not leading the pack. Look closely into the rear window of that car.
My new 60gb iPod video. No U2, try ABB instead.
Last night was a rockin' good time at Vito Goldergs, although it would appear that we changed our band name. Not so - Hard Livin' we remain!
Hard Livin Band playing tonight starting at 8pm (ish, as usual)! We'll be doing the Easy Livin' duo for this evening's performance. Map if you need it! See you there...
Last night we stopped by Best Buy after work here in Miami. Not one mile from the office. We spent less than 30 minutes in the store. Came back out, and somebody had screwdrivered the trunk and stole my backpack. Now the list of what was in it... laptop, iPod, two cell phones, batteries, power cables & adapters, medicine, a travel voucher for $400, flash drive, my latest copy of MAKE magazine and... 3 cards I'd received from Stephanie over the years. Ugh.
Morning sunrise in miami as seen from my hotel room.
Well, for one reason or another, we won't be playing with the full band for a while. The Tuesday Night gigs are Marlow's are done for a while, and we did a last hurrah at Padriac's on Friday.
After that, it's back to the Easy Livin' duo of Derrick and myself for the time being, until we book some full-band gigs. We need a band manager who's not afraid to do things the hard way - book gigs, collect and distribute money, strongarm bar managers, and do it all for next to nothing - or just nothing at all.
:)
Huh. Herring, okay, it's a fish. But Herring Party Snacks? Woo hoo! Break out the matzoh balls and gefilte fish, it's a par-tay!
I've posted some photos from our trip to Athens! Head on over to the photo gallery if'n you wanna check 'em out.
Well, as long as history includes the last 72 hours:
Two days ago we visited the National Archaeological Museum here in Athens. Quite a nice collection of Cycladic, Minoan and Mycenaean artifacts, as well as Geometric, Classical and Roman-era Greek stuff. The only detriment we noted was that a) the museum smelled like they allowed smokers in there about a week ago and they haven't aired it out in about 35 years; and b) the docents were asses. Long story on that one, but I'll save it for later. Suffice it to say that if they have a "don't video this statue" sign, then don't even point your camera at it, even when it's not recording. On a side note, I never understood why some statues shouldn't be taped. Flash photography I understand - video, I do not. I mean, I would even entertain the idea of purchasing a book of some sort in the museum shop. The only one they had that was of any quality cost 100 euro, and weighed about 10 kilos. Anyway.
We visited Cape Sounion yesterday. Awesome sight, and the drive was nice too: beachfront almost all the way. There at the Cape is the Temple of Poseidon, strategically placed 190m above the waters of the Aegean Sea. Didn't quite get to stay until sunset, but we got some nice pics anyway. And we looked for Byron's named carved into one of the columns, but couldn't see it. I did spot a few that were dated as early as 1813. Graffiti seems to be prevelant no matter the era.
Today we visited Epidaurus and Mycenae. Not a great day for travel because the weather has turned chilly and overcast. However, the bright spot is that on overcast days, photo color is more true. Anyway, Mycenae was particularly interesting for me because I studied that culture and period in college. It was pretty damn cool walking amidst walls that were built in 1400BCE - and even touching the walls! Epidaurus was ok, but because the rest of our travel group got cold we only spent about 30 minutes there. I did take some cool video of the "acoustically perfect" amphitheatre there. I'll say this. It's probably not acoustically perfect, but it's acoustically interesting.
Anyway, tomorrow it's on to Delphi, and then Monday we're headed home! Here's some pics:
1. Here we have gold funerary mask, excavated by Schliemann in Mycenae. He thought it was Agamemnon, but it's apparently some unknown dude who died 300 years before Aggy.
2. The Cyclopean walls of Mycenae. These blocks are pretty large and hefty.
3. The amphitheatre at Epidaurus. Steph's about halfway up. I, being a man, went all the way to the top. :)
4. A picture of the Corinth Canal. I did forget to mention we went there too. BTW, there's a stand on the roadside where you can get good leather there.
5. The Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion.
We've had a fine couple of days. Strolling around Athens, always keeping an eye out for the Acropolis. Yesterday we got up late (3pm!) and went to Lykavitos Hill and surveyed the land until sunset. Then, it was off to Plaka to find someplace for dinner. Lately we've been haunting this place we call the Watermelon, because the name in Greek looks like that word. Anyway, today we are going to the National Archaeological Museum. Tomorrow we'll tool around for a bit then head off to Cape Sounion to check out the Temple of Poseidon. Saturday is Epidaurus/Mycenae; Sunday is Delphi. Monday - back home. I'm hoping to get some more authentic Greek food at some point...By the way, Steph has actually eaten some Greek food which is quite a step forward from the box Mac & Cheese of late. See ya soon!
Pix from top:
St. George's l'il pocket church, atop Lykavitos Hill.
Greek military in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
Greek military-types removing the flag at sundown from Lykavitos Hill.
Here's a view from our hotel room balcony. Ignore the Weeble Wobble - it's a long story. Anyway, you can peep the Acropolis in the background!
Well, we made it to Athens! The flight was uneventful, and as usual I got about 2 hours of sleep. Local time is 7 hours ahead of EST, so I called Mom & Dad at 6am for a nice wake-up. :) Our hotel room has a view of the Acropolis, which is pretty darn cool. Maybe more later - internet access ain't cheap around here... so we are in the room and going to take showers etc and then hit the town!
Here are two pumpkins I carved for Halloween this year. The first is a skellyton with a bat. Not a bad carving job for my first detailed carving. The second is a ghost in front of a tombstone. It was kinda difficult to carve this guy because the punkin was about 14" tall, and 9" wide. Basically, tall and skinny - with a 2" rind. So detail carving was a bit of a challenge. Not bad for my second detailed carving.
Tools used:
1 plastic scoop spoon
1 coping saw blade in a plastic handle
1 awl (for marking my template).
(note: if you want to see larger pix, check my photo gallery - link on the right!)
Why? Well, I've been busy. Two gigs a week plus travel, then there the whole vacation thing next week. I haven't even had time to get excited about going to Greece.
Eh well, hopefully it'll hit on Sunday. When we're packing. Right before the flight.
:)
So Derrick, Tony, Chris and myself went down to Macon last night to see Widespread Panic (awesome show, btw). While driving back to ATL, somebody who shall remain nameless (Derrick) had to pee really bad. We bypassed one exit off of I-75 because it only had one gas station listed on the sign. We figured our chances were poor at 2AM with only one gas station. So, we opted for the next exit. Unfortunately, it had only one gas station, which was 1.1 miles from the highway. "What the hell," we said and forged on through the darkness. Let it be said that the area between Atlanta and Macon is not too dissimilar from the area in North Georgia where Deliverance was filmed. It turns out there is a state park off of this road, which means it's pretty much deserted. We passed a lone deer on the way in. So we pull up to the gas station which is closed. It's basically a wooden clapboard shack, with a nice sign advertising their copious amounts of bait and tackle wares for sale. To our astonishment, the restroom was open and lit, so we stopped off and recycled the refreshments we consumed earlier. One of us stood watch, naturally, for fear that local would stop by for a midnight romp wit' dem city boys. We did not get any boiled peanuts either.
One cool thing about leaving San Fran is the promise of a fresh seafood dinner at Fisherman's Wharf. Here's the view from our table. Ah, there's nothing like the stench of diesel and halibut!
Here I am, crossing the Golden Gate again. This seems to be getting Old Hat. Speaking of which, I wonder why people always refer to something that is worn out and crappy as "old hat". I have a few old hats and they are actually just now getting to be broken in.
Picture of some flowers taken by my walking path this morning.
The hotel gym was packed this morning so I decided to do my laps around the hotel area. The problem: it's 50 degrees and I have shorts and a T-shirt. But the area around the hotel is pretty cool - tall hills, marshy lowlands and canals. I had no idea. There's even a big ol' boat sitting out here!
I just bought this phone a few weeks ago for use in San Francisco, specifically because my Sprint phone gets zero reception in the client office where I am. I don't even carry this phone around normally. And, wouldn't you know it, when I take it out of my bag after arriving in my hotel room, the screen is busted. This really blows. Luckily, it's a very cheap phone and easily replaceable. And, I didn't even pay for it to begin with. :)
You might've read in an earlier post about my new series in Bathroom Wall Graffiti, the first post of which was from Northside Tavern. Well, here's a shot of the band that was playing that night. Your typical old-skool blues band. The lead dude played off/on slide on a 60's Gibson acoustic while the bassist played an original Silvertone - Yep, just like yours pop, except his still had the "Silvertone" plastic logo on the headstock. :) He complained that it was hard to keep it in tune.
The band wasn't that bad, just not much variety in their selections. Mostly I-IV-V blues in major scales. I think it was their first time with the drummer as he didn't know a lot of their turn arounds and exits, but he did well enough. They also featured an accompanying trombone which was a welcome twist. All in all, a good night.
