Journal

New Features...

06/24/2005

I've decided to add movie reviews to the site. I think it's a good idea to set them apart from the normal entries in this journal and will make for some extra content. So, somewhere on this site, probably the Album, will be the home to those reviews. I'll try and say something about individual movies as I see them or as I think of something to say. What fun.

Beverage: Coke

Music: The Smiths - Hand In Glove

late fees

06/23/2005

Lauryn and I rented Uzumaki (Spiral) and Spanglish a few days ago. I think it was her idea to go rent a movie in the first place... it was my mistake picking out Uzumaki. It was one of those, "this looks odd..." sort of moments; I showed her the box, and we ended up renting it. Essentially, Uzumaki is a film about people obsessed with spiral designs and subsequently dying and/or turning into giant snails. (I actually think I just gave away the whole plot.) As it progressed, it really felt like it was building towards something. Felt like. As soon as there was some glimmer of hope that there might actually be more of a plot, ah... no. The direction changes, random things happen, and I was left with this overwhelming feeling of, "um... o k a y." Spanglish, on the other hand, was noticeably more engaging, had a significantly better plot, and none of the characters turned into giant snails. Yeah.

Beverage: water

Music: Emiliana Torrini - Heartstopper

Snowflake

06/12/2005

The other day I was rewiring some stuff that I hadn't reconnected after rearranging the furniture. I had to lean over my couch to reach a surge arrestor on the floor beside it. In the process I moved a cushion and found a pair of sunglasses. I have no idea who they belong to. I'll include a photo below and hope that someone claims them.

I guess that's all for now.

Beverage: watered down Coke

Music: Emiliana Torrini - Serenade

Ellipsis

06/04/2005

Last week I spent some time with my friend Lauryn and discovered something when I got back to my place. The wristwatch I lost back in November of 2004 was sitting under the seat of my car. Talk about random... I thought I had searched the car fairly thoroughly. My mother borrowed my car a few weeks back and moved the driver side seat. I'll assume that somehow the watch had ended up in the track for the seat and that was the reason why I was unable to locate it. Moving the seat must have dislodged it from its hiding place... and... yeah, now I have it back.

So, it would appear that I didn't write anything last month. Oh well, perhaps I will make up it this month, or next month, or... yeah. I've been working on some random programs lately as well as spending a little time working on a project I started... oh... a long time ago. It seems like I have more ideas than I have time for, and not enough motivation to finish any of it. The current plan is to rearrange my furniture. It's something I will have to complete in the near future as the windows on the house are going to be replaced. Yeah... more destruction, or construction, or whatever. It's all part of an ongoing cycle that never seems to end. In any event, I need to move everything away from the windows and I've been wanting to change things around. I started moving things a few weeks ago and somehow haven't made it past the bookshelves. There was a time when I would decide to rearrange the furniture and I would be done with it in an hour or two. Several weeks later, I'm no further along. Hmm... maybe I'll make up for it... say, tomorrow, or next week. Note a trend here?

Something's wrong with a program I've been using to debug another program I wrote. Yeah, leave it to me to find a way to avoid working on a project. I've written a series of utilities that can generate, debug, and make changes to source code for another project I'm working on. I just point them at a directory of source code and let them batch through the files. It's great except that one of them seems to stop unexpectedly when the power savings features of Windows XP kick in. Since there are thousands of files and the operations take several seconds to complete, I never seem to finish a complete batch in one go. The utility doesn't crash but simply terminates the current batch as if I had stopped it manually. The weird part is that it's just the display that's being turned off that seems to trigger it and nothing else. Maybe I'll write something to disable the display and attempt to trap the error... or maybe I'll just disable the power savings features entirely. For some reason that seems like far too much effort to worry about it.

In other random computer related news, my KVM seems to be dying. I think I've had a KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) switch linking four computers together for almost a decade. It's great being able to save the desk space by only having one keyboard, mouse, and monitor to share among the systems. However, I recently made the leap into the realm of flat panel displays. I've got my development box on its own display. The keyboard and mouse were still being shared via the KVM up until a week or two ago. My mouse had been acting erratically and so I figured it was time for a new one. The mouse I was using was a first generation Microsoft Intellimouse with scroll wheel. Hey, it even had Micron OEM branding on it... so... either it dates back to when I was in high school or I acquired it elsewhere. I really don't remember. Anyhow, I switched out the mouse with one of the new less-comfortable Microsoft optical mice and the problem was noticeably worse. Think lots of vertical movement while the mouse was stationary and the inability to get the cursor anywhere near the center of the display. So... was it the KVM? I bypassed it and the problem's gone. That leaves me in my current situation with one keyboard, two mice, and two displays. The keyboard situation is going to drive me crazy. I never seem to remember which system has the keyboard and I usually end up typing keystrokes on the wrong machine. So... I might connect a second keyboard and possibly ditch the KVM or replace it. So much for saving desk space with those flat panels.

New topic... I went swimming with Lauryn last week in my neighborhood pool. Yes, that's the first time I've been in the pool here and also the first time I've gone swimming in years. Exactly how many years, I have no idea. We stopped by earlier in the day to check out the crowd and there were two roosters loitering in the parking lot. Yeah... livestock. I took some photos that I might include below should I suddenly feel motivated. We fed them some long expired cheese and peanut butter crackers that were in my car and waited around until they wandered off. When we came back later, the crowd had disappeared and the water was cold. Yet, it was a pool and we swam around for a while. Fun fun fun.

Beverage: Coke

Music: Ivy - Disappointed