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bryguy's LiveJournal:
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| Monday, July 21st, 2008 | | 12:14 pm |
Is T. Boone Pickens the next Ross Perot? Maybe he's positioning himself for veep. I saw an ad for his wind-power plan the other day, but it looked more like an ad for him which makes me wonder what's up with it. The guy's a GOP player and a multi-billionaire, but I don't have to like him to appreciate his advocacy on behalf of alternative energy. It would be refreshing if there were no other motive. | | Friday, July 18th, 2008 | | 3:01 pm |
cables I am in need of about a dozen 1/4" to 1/8" mono headphone cables, at least 4 ft. long each, since the cats chewed through my old ones. Sweetwater has them for $4.69 with free shipping. I really don't want to use adapters. Anyone know a place to get these cheaper? | | 11:23 am |
Poker
Ugh. Went in with a good attitude. 1/2 hour drive to Matt's new place, but there was good music on the radio and I had the windows down. 1/2 hour wait for the game to start, but I chatted with Matt and met some of his friends. 1/2 hour wait for a good hand, KK - Matt calls my KK all in with AA. "GG". I stop at the nearby getgo for gas, but the pump I pull up to is out of order. There are two on the other side so I hop back into my car, circle around, and a not very friendly looking guy in a brand new corvette pulls in to that lane taking the first of the two pumps so I can't get to the second one. If he just pulled up 10 feet we both could have pulled in but instead I have to back up, circle around, and back in to the other working pump. I put my fuel-perks card in and start pumping, and it pumps gas into my car at a rate of, seriously, about a gallon a minute. Drip, drip. I would not have endured the way this slow pumping was enraging me on this hot night except that I'd lose my fuel perks if I pulled away before filling up. 30 cents off, 11 gallons, a little over 3 dollars to sit there for about 10 minutes. Almost not worth it but I was already there. I continued to wipe the sweat off my brow and watched the Corvette drive off, then began the 30 minute drive home, my mood unspeakable. The music on the radio was crap.
Things got better after I came home and watched some family guy with my wife so the night wasn't a complete bust but man, sometimes things just don't go your way. | | Thursday, July 10th, 2008 | | 6:16 pm |
Music
I think I need to make some more music now. Maybe something different this time. Who wants to get together for some jamming/brainpicking? Comment, IM, text, call, email, smokesignal me. Whatever... man. | | 10:28 am |
Michael Moore Be Saggin'  Flint MI outlaws saggy pants, via Andrew Sullivan. Is there a waiver for plumbers? | | Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 | | 8:24 pm |
Food
"I'm a glutton for nourishment".
Heh. I just made that up. | | Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 | | 11:50 am |
Why Wii, Why?
I went out to buy a Wii and Wii fit for my niece and nephew this week and gosh, what is going on with that company? The Wii has been out for what, almost 2 years now? It is almost impossible to find them anywhere still. I called/stopped about 10 different places before lucking out on the last Wii at Century III Gamestop, and then found what may have been the only Wii Fit sets in town at Toys'R'Us because it hadn't been unloaded from the pallet yet, they cracked open the shipping box and while I was standing there being rung up two more people were asking for them over their intercom.
If it somehow benefits them to not make enough of themm, I confess I don't understand. I could see production problems with the Wii Fit scales, but the Wii consoles? Still? | | Saturday, June 28th, 2008 | | 10:50 am |
| | Thursday, June 26th, 2008 | | 1:55 pm |
Little Guy  Praying Mantises (Manti?) are so neat. Especially teeny tiny ones that walk all over your hands. T even let him walk on her a little bit much to my surprise. | | Monday, June 23rd, 2008 | | 11:26 am |
Vaca Hey Hey Just a couple observations about our visit to Cedar Point last weekend. When we arrived, there were a few nifty looking bugs on the door to the hotel. And by a few, I mean a lot. There were literally thousands of them crushed on the sidewalk and sitting quietly on just about every flat surface that hadn't been brushed clear. ( Armageddon for bugs after the jump ) | | 11:04 am |
Be Excellent to Each Other
George Carlin would have wanted it that way. | | Monday, June 2nd, 2008 | | 10:23 am |
time to find my soldering iron One of the cats chewed through the wii infrared cable. Again. We used two candles on top of the tv as a replacement for a while yesterday<, but it's not really a permanent solution. Bad cats. Bad. | | Friday, May 30th, 2008 | | 11:46 am |
| | Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 | | 12:19 pm |
| | Wednesday, May 21st, 2008 | | 11:13 am |
For the Confused: Talking to Our Enemies
Everyone's got a friend, relative, or favorite presidential candidate named John McCain who is confused about talking to Iran, Hamas, and other "vaguely scary brown people" (tm). Jim Baker (who worked for Reagan and both Bushes) sets them straight in this October 2006 interview:
Well spoken. Wish that guy was on our side more often. | | 10:49 am |
Indy Film Apparently Indiana Jones won't be upgraded for the computer era: A conscious decision in production was made to steer clear of CGI effects when possible and perform stunts the old-fashioned way, and it’s certainly paid off – everything, from sword-fights on duelling jeeps to motorcycle chases and mad dashes through ancient ruins and treasure-filled warehouses feels suitably weighty and satisfying. That's refreshing. I wasn't very interested until I read that. Hopefully they've learned from the mistakes of Star Wars: Episode 1. | | Friday, May 16th, 2008 | | 1:37 pm |
The Office ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) sonbanon and I have been thoroughly enjoying the first 3 seasons of the Office. We just finished the last episode of season 3 last night. The humor is kind of like Ben Stiller movie humor; you want to cringe all the time because you just can't watch the horrible humiliation that a character is about to inflict upon him or herself. It's the comedic equivalent of not wanting to watch in a horror movie when the victim gets in the car without checking the back seat. Some of the jokes are *really* funny, but the show is really character driven, and this is where it shines. Even though the characters are all exaggerated caricatures, they are nevertheless extremely believable. Maybe part of it is that there are so many average looking or even downright ugly cast members, so it doesn't feel like you're watching Friends-at-Work. Maybe it's that the acting is just that good. Whatever the case, they have managed to create characters that, to me, feel more real than any fictional character on TV since Cheers. I watched a few episodes of the British version of the office, and the manager character is not likable the way that Steve Carell's is. I don't think it was written to be that way, I understand that the plots diverged a bit after the first season? Anyway, it looked like in the first season Michael Scott was trying to be a bit of a jerk, but now he's just hapless and it works. | | Thursday, May 15th, 2008 | | 2:58 pm |
All Politics are Global
Bush goes to Israel to attack Obama. Senator Biden rightly calls it Bullshit, pointing out that his own National Security Adviser Condi Rice holds the same position. But the content isn't important; what Bush is doing is giving a campaign speech in the house of a foreign government.
The news will dutifully report Bush's attacks, the subtext that Iran is Nazi Germany won't be challenged, and it will continue to be ok to do things like attack members of the Senate (responsible for declaring war mind you) on foreign soil, if and only if you're a Republican. | | Friday, May 9th, 2008 | | 2:18 pm |
Uncle Bryguy's Quickie Reviews Petite Vanilla Bean Scone (from Starbucks): Like Andrew Sullivan, I am impressed. A delicious little 75 cent pastry that goes very well with your coffee, kind of like a very soft sugar cookie. And like one of Andrew's readers, I have to agree; the name sounds very effeminate, I guess maybe they want to segment the market so that customers less secure in their masculinity will order one of the $2 plus pastries. Not me. Morning Glory Pita from the Pita Pit (Carson Street, near the Hot Metal Bridge: Astounding! This is what I always imagined a breakfast burrito would taste like. It's huge so it's dinner all by itself (I don't actually recommend it for breakfast). They put scrambled eggs, mushrooms, onions, cheese and sauce (I picked BBQ sauce and Cheddar) into a giant pita and wrap it in paper that's just not quite up to the task, but they give you napkins to compensate. Ask for some spinach too. Piper's Vegetable Curry: I walked in to Piper's expecting a very veggie-unfriendly experience, but they actually have quite a few things worth eating on the menu for us herbivores. The Vegetable Curry was actually mostly potatoes and curry, plus a few other veggies piled on top. Incredibly spicy and quite tasty, but goes better with an ale than with a Guiness imho. | | Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 | | 11:52 am |
very large dataset
I've got a problem for work and I thought perhaps one of my readers out there might have some insight.
I need to come up with a very large dataset of publicly available data that is related to some topic high schoolers might find intriguing (as much as that's possible :) ). My first thought was the freedb project which is a free implementation of the cddb database that Gracenote stole from the users a few years back, but I was disappointed to find that the whole dataset clocks in at under 600 megabytes. I need something that's at least a terabyte and ideally much bigger. It has to be free (not just as in cost, but as in freedom i.e. no copyright/trademark restrictions), it can't raise any privacy concerns, and it has to be pg-13.
If you have any suggestions and or pointers I will be in your debt. |
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