Do it yourself, with shredded foam!
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02.28.2002 |
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02.28.2002 |
Now that is a sweet PC case. |
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02.28.2002 |
I guess that The Grammys were last night. The only (new) album that I bought last year that I'm still listening to is the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack, and it did pretty well, getting Album of the Year, best Compilation Soundtrack Album, best Make Vocal Performance for Ralph Stanley on "O Death", best Collaboration With Vocals for one of the versions of "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow", best instrumental performance for another "Constant Sorrow" version, Producer of the Year for T Bone Burnett, and the live version of the album, Down From the Mountain, won best Folk Traditional album. Kick ass... In other Grammy news, the Fatboy Slim "Weapon of Choice" video, the one with the creepy flying Christopher Walken, won best short form video. Most importantly, though, They Might Be Giants won a grammy for best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television, or Other Visual Media for "Boss of Me", the theme song to Malcolm in the Middle. Rock on guys... They're actually going to be in KC in just a couple of weeks. I guess I should go to that show... It's been a while since I've seen them. |
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02.28.2002 |
Here is some all around fun European press bashing from James Lileks. |
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02.27.2002 |
Well, it's Wednesday night, so I just got back from trivia night. Although I didn't ask the literature major out, I did hang out with her parents all night. Her parents are probably the most fun set of parents I've ever met other than mine. The story is that I worked later than normal, so I didn't go home and change clothes like I normally do. I went straight to the bar to wait for my normal crowd to arrive. They showed up soon after, and we went to get our table. There was a bit of time before we figured out where we were going to sit because one of the girls was sitting with her manager from work, an approximately 40 year old woman who looked remarkably like the therapist from The Sopranos. Anyway, our crowd had a bunch of people showing up, so we got a different table. We sat down and played some trivia and had some beers. Only two girls from our normal crowd showed up, and they both got tired early, so they decided to retire. I decided to go sit with the manager and her friend since I was not ready to drive myself. The manager convinced one of the girls to hang out for a while longer. We all sat around and talked, then the literature major showed up. I soon found out that the friend of the manager was lit. major's mother. Soon thereafter, her husband, the lit. major's father showed up with a friend. Lit. major and her friend left after the KU v. KSU game finished up, and I was left with the lit. major's parents, the manager, and another guy. I hung out a while longer and kept drinking and talking, then the women took off. After they left, the guys spent the rest of the evening talking about strip clubs, bar whores, and beer. It was a good evening. The non-lit-major-parent guy made a crack about having an affair with the manager. I'm not sure if that was a joke or not. The manager had told me she's at the bar every Tuesday and Friday. I think I may show up this Friday, mostly because I have nothing better to do, and a couple beers before I head out to Rusty's Last Chance couldn't hurt. I dig older women. And I had spent a fair amount of the evening talking with the manager, and she is unmarried. Did I mention I'm a pig? I think lit. major is a write off, but I don't see her that often, and when I do it's usually for short periods of time. I think I'm going to go to sleep now... Late night blogging rules... |
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02.26.2002 |
Damn it's cold. |
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02.26.2002 |
"To cease smoking is the easiest thing I ever did; I ought to know because I have done it a thousand times." -- Mark Twain Well, a couple of people have taken me up on the challenge to quit smoking this Friday, March 1. If anybody else would like in, email me and I'll put your names on the page I'll create this evening. Everyone who is still quit March 1, 2003 gets a complimentary Gimpysoft.com Polo Shirt. For those of you who don't currently smoke but would still like Gimpysoft.com clothing, I'll have a store set up hopefully this weekend. I still need to create some higher resolution graphics so that the items print properly. I expect to do that some time this week, and if not, this weekend. Once I get the store set up, I'm going to order myself a T-shirt and a Polo shirt, just to see what the quality is like. I'll report the results. I expect to add T-shirts, Polo Shirts and coffee mugs to the store. I'm going to set the prices at cost, so I won't be making any money off the items, but some are a bit pricey. I think that's just a function of the costs of the print-on-demand service I'll be using. If anybody is handy with Photoshop (or other drawing tools) and would like to design a logo, email me and I can let you know what the specs I need for the images are. If not, I'll do them myself with my meager drawing skills. But Purple Gyakui (our mascot, up in the top right corner) isn't too hard to draw anyway... |
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02.26.2002 |
Best 70th Birthday wishes to Johnny Cash. |
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02.25.2002 |
Well, I'm finally back into racquetball. I've only been a member of a gym once before, and that turned out badly. But since I have a regular two-day-a-week racquetball partner, I think it's worth the $320 I just spent for a one year membership at Gold's Gym. I had been trying to decide what gym to join for about the last month or so. I've always thought of Gold's Gym as being nothing but a bunch of steroid pumped guys running around screaming "SO HOW MUCH YOU BENCH!!!???" There was one guy in the gym who just did not have a natural looking body. Scrawny little legs, but this gigantic chest... It looked like he was wearing one of those puffy winter jackets. But other than that, it was a good mix of fat guys, athletic/skinny type guys, good muscle tone guys, and best of all, lots and lots of attractive women. I had problems at our last racquetball court because these two girls would work out while we were playing then do stretches for about the last half hour we played. I'd lose a serve and turn around to walk back to receive the serve, and it would take me just a bit of time to turn back around for the serve, as I was distracted. Well, here there are about ten machines directly behind the racquetball court, and they are heavily populated by very fit women in tight workout clothes. Damn, I'm a pig. I can't wait to grow up and be a dirty old man. |
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02.23.2002 |
RIP, Chuck Jones. That's just sad. |
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02.23.2002 |
I did my taxes yesterday, and I'm getting over $700 back. Hooray for me! |
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02.23.2002 |
Asking only workers wages, I come looking for a job but I get
no offers... So I've been talking about doing it for a while. The theory is that I don't get enough exercise. Probably the best shape I've been in was after my first summer home from college when I worked temp jobs, mainly warehouse work. That summer, I primarily worked at a Packard Bell disassembly location. My job, for ten hours a day, was to take computers off of pallets, put them on the disassembly line, and push them down. You would not believe how many Packard Bell computers are returned every day. But I could always use a bit more money, and since I need the exercise, I registered with a temporary labor agency here in town. I woke up at 5:30 this morning and drove over to the agency. The guy said he was expecting some work setting up bleachers for an event today, but he hadn't gotten the call yet. So I hung out for the morning. They had a TV, and Star Wars came on Showtime. So we all sat around and watched the movie in its entirety. After the movie, a call hadn't come, so we left numbers and took off. Maybe there'll be work tomorrow. Damn this recession! |
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02.22.2002 |
This is the funniest bit of Enron news I've heard yet. |
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02.22.2002 |
Can somebody please explain to me the rules for apostrophes to indicate possession, especially as it relates to plurals? For example, is my use of "clerics'" to indicate that the explanations belong to a group of clerics correct? I can never remember how those work. I guess I should have paid more attention in fourth grade, or maybe I shouldn't have drank so much in college... Regardless, that is a poorly constructed sentence. But what else is new around here? I wish to have that previous post stricken from the record. Bailiff, escort him from the courtroom, please. |
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02.22.2002 |
More fun from MEMRI: This article presents Islamic clerics' explanations of the rationale behind polygamy. |
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02.22.2002 |
I read an article on the Middle East Media Research Institute's website not too long ago. The article pretty much celebrates the first female Palestinian suicide bomber. It made me truly sick to read it. Now contrast that with this story of an alert woman, who on noticing a terrorist attempting to detonate a bomb in a store, shot him twice in the head at close range. You go, girl! |
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02.21.2002 |
Enough posts for me tonight. I'm too tired to try to post pictures tonight, and the Mardi Gras pictures didn't come out all that great anyway. Maybe tomorrow. GDCPDB pictures will come once they arrive in the mail. |
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02.21.2002 |
I found this page on Jazz in Kansas City a couple of days ago. I know I don't live in New Orleans, but short of that (maybe Chicago), I live in a bit of a Jazz Mecca. It's about time I go out and see some, and I'm going to take care of that this weekend. |
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02.21.2002 |
The Time Cube debate did in fact happen. There are reports on the event here, here, and here, but I don't have video. Hopefully that will appear soon. The event was videotaped, but nobody has posted it yet. I contacted the coordinator of the event, but he never responded. I wish I could have gone. Gene Ray seems a bit disturbed, but I've never denied that title myself. From all the accounts I read, he was treated with respect, and the questions asked of him were genuine. I wish I could have been there. |
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02.21.2002 |
You can read the prologue to Stephen King's fifth Dark Tower book here. |
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02.21.2002 |
Well, I just smoked that cigarette in the frigid Kansas City air. As I smoked the cigarette, I read the first few pages of a book my boss loaned to me today. This book was first recommended to me by an old roommate (and one of the Young Pups) in Houston. I found out about a year ago that this book was going to be the next Terry Gilliam movie. Just from reading the first couple pages of this book, I can tell it is going to be good. As many of the blurbs for the book say, it has a bit of a Hitchhikers Guide feel to it. I think that Terry could do well with this material. I'll try to give a bit more of a review after I've read a bit more of it, but it looks like it's going to be worth the read. |
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02.21.2002 |
Wow, it sure has been a while. I've had a couple of beers, and this is the first time I've had to relax in a week or so, so I guess it's about time for an update. Let me open up with this. I had an incredibly vivid dream last night. The dream follows: I was back in California for some reason. I ran into Julie, the girl I had a crush on all through Junior High and High School but never dated. We got to talking and hit it off real well. She was still single, so I asked her out for that evening. We went out to some outdoor cafe of some sort and she whipped out a pipe and asked me if I'd like a smoke. I said sure. She passed it to me and I took a hit. I immediately got very, very stoned. There were other people there hitting off the pipe. The guy next to me said, "So how do you like that crack?" "Crack?", I said? I thought it was just pot... Then I look up in my daze to see Julie shooting something into her arm with a needle. I understandably get worried about this poor girl shooting heroin, so I take her home. The next morning, I wake up to a phone call from Julie's mom. They've arranged an intervention for her, and wonder if I'd like to be involved. I say yes, I'd be happy to help. So I show up at the intervention and we corner Julie. The mom starts things off. "Julie, we all know that you've been smoking pot. We've seen changes in you since you started, and we think we liked you better before you did." Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I didn't know exactly what to do. Apparently this intervention was to try to get Julie to quit smoking pot, but she was in much worse trouble than that. That's when my alarm clock went off. I haven't thought about Julie in quite a while. She was one of my three true loves. (I never dated her, and the other two dumped me. I guess that the only reason I still think about all three of them is the fact that I still thought I was in love with them when they left. But emotionally, I'm still in High School.) I don't know how to interpret this dream, so I'll leave it as is. Sad news on the dating front. I met a girl about a month ago who I really thought was the one for me. We never really had a chance to talk one-on-one, but all the indicators of "the girl for me" were there. She had a job. She was smart. She listened to all the same mindless NPR shows that I do. I met her at a Big Smith show. The only problem was that she was at the Big Smith show with that fucker I got in a fight with last summer. I had written him off as somebody I just didn't want to have around any more after the fight last summer, but I decided to let him hang around for a bit, only so I could hang out with this very, very cool woman. So last weekend was the First Annual Gimpysoft.com President's Day Bacchanalia. The party actually went fairly well, if I do say so myself. The house was just about filled to capacity. I had to allow smoking in the house because I was worried that twenty or so people hanging out on the deck past midnight might bug the neighbors. I apologize to the few non-smokers at the party, and particularly to the couple of people who had problems with the smoke and had to leave. I guess I ought to apologize to the poor bastard non-smokers who didn't have the option to leave, but they can go STRAIGHT TO HELL! Sorry about that, I got away from myself for a moment. Anyway, I thought it was a fairly good party. The guy who was friends with the girl did eventually make an ass of himself. I had to find a driver to take him home. I honestly wasn't even aware of the fact that he was doing anything abnormal, other than the fact that two people came up to me and told me that he had to be handled. So I handled the situation and decided that he had blown his second chance, and that I never want to see him again in my life. Unfortunately, that means that I'll never see The One For Me™ again either. Over the last several years, I've been slowly coming to terms with the fact that I am indeed going to be single for the rest of my life. As that slowly penetrates my thick skull, several things occur to me:
I guess those are the only two. I did not in fact quit smoking on this most recent run. I knew I wasn't going to make it through Mardi Gras, so I spared myself the torment and gave up on the first day. I guess the new Quit Date is March 1. Who's with me? Email me if you're with me on the March 1 quit date. I'll post a list, and check your names off as you fall, one-by-one, before me. Like the "Master of my domain" contest, this will have to be on the honor system, but I'll keep track better than I did with the NFL Playoffs. But since I haven't quit yet, I'm going to step outside for a cigarette. After I finish this cigarette, I will either go to bed (this option is most likely), or I will process and upload pictures from Mardi Gras. The pictures are sitting in a memory card reader attached to my computer. They have been since last Thursday. I have no excuse for not having them up on this web page other than my own laziness. But then again, what other excuse do I really need. |
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02.14.2002 |
Happy Valentine's Day again... Unless you're living in Saudi Arabia. Apparently the Saudis have a "Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Evil" which has banned the celebration of Valentine's Day. The ban includes round-the-clock patrols for anything red, for roses, chocolates or greeting cards.
Now remember people, these are our friends... |
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02.14.2002 |
Happy
Valentine's Day. I haven't posted in a while, so thought I'd throw
something up quick. Mardi Gras was fun, pictures will follow when
I get a chance. The First Annual Gimpysoft.com President's Day Bacchanalia
is this Saturday, February 16, and I've been spending my evenings
since returning from New Orleans getting Gimpysoft.com's new corporate
headquarters ready for the festivities. I'm just about there, but
still have some cleaning to do. If you live in the Kansas City area
(or if you don't) and would like to attend the party, email
me for directions Electrical problems abound at our new corporate headquarters, mostly because I didn't know to break a tab off of the outlets that have one switched outlet and one always on outlet. So none of the switches work in the bedrooms, but it should be easy enough to fix. A Geek Proposal: CmdrTaco, head honcho at Slashdot has proposed to his girlfriend using... Slashdot. She accepted. |
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02.06.2002 |
I haven't posted anything in a while. I've been busy working on my house (still not done yet...), and getting ready for my trip to New Orleans. I'm heading down there today right after work, and won't be back until next Tuesday. I doubt I'll be anywhere near a computer, but I'll try to find a way to upload my pictures if I get a chance. Otherwise, I'll just have to get them up here when I get back. I only have two things left to do: Go to Best Buy and buy a new memory card for my camera, and go to Wal Mart and buy myself a new sleeping bag. I'll do those at lunch and hit the road at about 4:00. See you all at Mardi Gras. If you see me, say hi. I'll be the drunk guy. That joke never gets old... |
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02.04.2002 |
I think we should have the Rams to the Super Bowl more often. At least the games are interesting when they play... |
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02.01.2002 |
Every once in a while, I like to read Arab News, the Saudi government-run english language news site, mostly just for entertainment value. In an article today, these two sentences appeared back-to-back.
Ah, the Saudis... Our monarchist, Jew-hatin' friends... I really hope we re-assess whether this is a government we want to continue to support... |
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02.01.2002 |
Stephen King is retiring. At least he says he's going to finish up the Dark Tower books before he stops... |
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02.01.2002 |
Well, I guess I survived the killer ice storm. I never fully lost
power, but I had enough flickers to make my computers reboot several
times. I made up a quick
slideshow of pictures just from my backyard, but I'll try to
take some pictures of some cooler-looking stuff today when I'm out.
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02.01.2002 |
Wacky protests up at Protest.net. |