Monthly Archives: February 2009

Sports, Uncategorized

Top Notch For All Parties

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Michelle and I DID end up making it to the Bucks game this evening– she was pretty sick and didn’t go into work this morning, but the drugs she got from the doctor were kicking in by the time the game rolled around, so we decided not to waste them.

I haven’t been shy about bad-mouthing the Bucks in this forum for the last couple seasons.  If Michelle was not a huge fan of TJ Ford (from his days in Milwaukee), I most likely would not have bothered with a game this season.  This is definitely a different group than the last time I watched them, though (back in December of 2006).  I was impressed with the hustle and the apparent effort at the defensive end of the floor.  Granted, on this particular evening, they were shooting anywhere from 53-57% throughout the game, so there was a lot of incentive to get after the ball and keep things rolling.  But yeah; I’ll admit, I was impressed.

Meanwhile, I took along my camera, attached the telephoto lens, put it on continuous-shooting mode and ended up with about 750 images to download– yikes.  Bed time; be back tomorrow…

Sports, Uncategorized

It's Just About Time

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While Jim is sad about the lack of exciting sports-goings-on at this time of year, I am delighted to look ahead to baseball season.  Tom Haudricourt, from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, posted a blog with a link to Baseball Prospectus’s 2009 predictions earlier today…

They mathematically project a team’s record by tallying up individual player projections for the year.  They have the Brewers finishing with a winning record, but missing the playoffs.  It’ll be interesting to come back here in 7 months and see what actually happened!

General, Uncategorized

What Are You Doing In the House??

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If you are living in WI, go the hell outside– it is a beautiful weekend!  I have things to do around this place, but I am heading out shortly to take some photos this afternoon.  I haven’t tried photographing the outdoors in (relatively) yucky-looking winter weather, but it’s worth a shot.  I also want to get some practice in with my new camera, so however I can make that happen will be cool.

Speaking of which, I decided I’m going to switch over to Picasa 3– its cross-platformy goodness and a little studying of its key features made it seem a lot more usable to me.  One thing, though: does anybody know how to make it display all pics in the collection by date, and just ignore the folders that they’re in?

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday…

Hollywood, Uncategorized

(Partially) Swearing Off DVD

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At some point during this week (not sure when, the days and mornings are sort of starting to blend together), I ended up on Amazon browsing at CDs and DVDs.  With so many of my friends and fam now making the jump to BluRay, I realized– maybe I ought to quit buying DVDs (for now) altogether.

Jen agreed that for those films where outstanding picture clarity and sound truly add to the experience, that’s a good idea (your special effects extraveganzas, etc.), but for certain other movies or TV (like The Mosquito Coast, for example, which I’ve got coming next week), it’s probably not vital.  I decided I won’t be collecting any more seasons of Heroes until I’m rockin the BluRay, and ditto for BSG.  There’s just not much point when you know that you’re not getting the best that the current tech has to offer, right?

One point I will not waver on, though, is this: I absolutely refuse to put one more goddamned dime in George frakkin Lucas’s oversized pockets.  I’ve bought your son-of-a-bitchin trilogy 6 times now, Georgey-boy, and that will be quite enough.  I don’t care if the BluRay edition comes with a coupon for a free, lifesize X-Wing fighter replica ((I DO care about that, and if that was the actual offer, I would be at the front of the line.)), I am done.

Meanwhile, speaking of DVDs, I really need to find a reasonably priced storage medium for discs.  Don’t like the clunky (and expensive) cases, so I’d like to get a book.  But what sort of storage capacity do I really need?  That’s the question.

Hey, since YOU went BluRay, which are your favorite movies so far?  Have you caught yourself licking the screen at any point?  That’s kinda gross, dude, but I understand.

General, Uncategorized

Twinkies Photos

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Howdy… in case you were wondering, I expanded the TwinCities photo gallery this morning with 26 more shots from Michelle’s camera.  She took a whole bunch of pics from our karaoke night at LaFonda, so if you’re interested, take a look…

There are also a few from the hockey game and the Depot.

Any big plans for the weekend?  I’m gonna watch the PRO BOWL!!!

…

No, I’m actually not.

"Roll Your Own", General, Hollywood, Uncategorized

Fun With Fonts

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Like 20 thousand other Lifehacker readers, I picked up on this post a couple days ago that mentioned a website where you could generate your own hand-written fonts FOR FREE.  It took about 2 and a half days for the traffic to settle down, but early this morning, I was able to get in there and scan in a few different “Bocko” fonts.  The timing on the post was funny, because I had asked Michelle just a day or two before if she knew how to design one’s own font; I have a couple projects on which I’d like to use my own digital handwriting…

Anyway, I was really impressed with how they turned out.  I even changed a few default fonts on my system to use my new handwritten ones instead; we’ll see how long that lasts before it gets too annoying for words (I have a feeling that the first time someone else comes over to the house and sits down at the computer, we’ll need to switch back to something else.  But I can read these JUST fine…).

On the geeky-website-news front, I was excited to see that there should be a bug-fixing version of WordPress due out soon.  I took a look at the list of tickets that have been closed on version 2.7.1, and it seems like a couple of my plugin problems might get fixed.  I’m anxious because there are a couple new features in the next version I’d like to be able to implement here on the site.  I don’t think I’m going to bother testing the beta, but as soon as there is an official x.x.1 release, I’ll be on it.

On the geeky-television-news front, Jen figures that Sylar’s dad is invisible.  In more ways than one, Jen, in more ways than one…

On the sisters’-bithdays front, Christy is 26 today!!  I talked to her yesterday and mentioned that it’s time to start that next quarter-century– no lookin back now; next stop: 30!  Happy b-day, Kid.

Time to head out to work– have a fabulous Wednesday.

General, Uncategorized

It Was a Nice Weekend

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Had a time overall this past weekend– on Friday, I went out for a couple drinks with some people from work at Bar Louie, in the Bayshore mall.  Kyle met me there just before 7 and picked me up to drive back toward my place and hang out.  Good to see the K-Man; Michelle and I agreed that it will be nice when Robin comes out of hiding in the future, too…  😛

We decided to have a couple beers at the American Legion post 331, just across Wilson Ave from my house.  Ever since I moved to Shorewood, Michelle and I have been talking (partly tongue-in-cheek) about dropping in there for the fish fry on a Friday night.  When Kyle and I got there, there was still quite a bit of fish being slung, and the atmosphere did not disappoint.  We had pint-tappers of High Life for 2.50.  Not bad at all.  Michelle joined us a bit later, but by then, it was about time for everyone to head out and get some sleep before our respective Saturdays.

Michelle had to get up even earlier than me (!!) in order to make it to Watertown for judging a cheer competition.  I just needed to be ready for Sarah & Brian to pick me up at around 12:30 for our trip to Fort Atkinson.  We were en route to Brad & Mindy’s place for a day out to bid farewell to Todd & Marcia; they are heading to Laos, where Marcia will be working on a project for her PhD.  They’re going to be gone for several months, so it was nice for everyone to get together for an evening out.  Photos from this event are in the Day to Day gallery ((Speaking of photos, I’ve uploaded some from our Twin Cities weekend, too; I only had a few, but they are in the TwinCities gallery)).

On Sunday, we made a quick shopping detour in Johnson Creek before making it back to Milwaukee.  We caught most of the Super Bowl (well, at least half of it) over at Chris/Bob/Justin’s place.  The second half of the game was pretty exciting!  I felt bad for Jason Hill, who was the only Steelers fan in the place.  Personally, I didn’t have a horse in that race, so I was rooting for some of friends who were watching (whoooo!!  Eat that lii’ smoky weiner!!!).

One thing I did discover over the balance of the weekend is that I will need more discipline in order to stick to a schedule on those off-days.  It’s hard to carve up your time the right way when you might go out and not know exactly when you’re getting in (or how late you’ll sleep).  I might just have to “power through” and do my best on those days…

Well, plenty to get done around here before the end of my short day; I have to leave work around 3:30 to head to Madison for a “Recruitment & Outreach” presentation.  Gonna be a late night, but I’m taking some This American Life with me, so I should be golden…

"Roll Your Own", General, Uncategorized

A Little Do-Over

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So I’m pretty sure I mentioned I got a new camera.  I started using it this past weekend, and I’m going to enjoy shooting with it (some of those photos may be available for viewing right here on this website soon)!

As I imported my images to the photo-catalogging software that I used, I realized that my system for storing pictures is a little bit antiquated; I used to keep a certain number of pictures “sync’d” between my laptop’s hard drive and the server.  Thing is, how often do I really haul my laptop around to show people pictures (unless it’s a special event)?  And secondly, it seems like it would be a lot easier to work on editing pictures when you have them stored locally, versus on a network.

So I trashed the database that my computer had built of the pictures, I did a total reinstall of F-Spot, and I’m starting over with a local storage directory on my desktop machine that will be backed up nightly to the server.  Seems like that fits in a little better with the current state of affairs.

I also overslept this morning and need to start getting ready for work soon, I’ll have to catch you up on the rest of my weekend later on.

Have a good Monday!