General, Hollywood, Uncategorized

Just In Case You Missed It and Other Holiday Items

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Howdy.  Got a lot of good “workin” done for a change today, so I have to be quick on the bloggeration front.

Wanted to put a post out here to make anyone digesting soloshootsfirst via RSS that there is news on my New Year’s Eve plans, and a special page on the site dedicated to it.  Some of the plans are still in flux, but there definitely WILL be a party, in a specific place (or two), at [a] specific time(s), and this is one of my favorite things: really easy for visitors to the site to post comments on the page for all to see in relation to the party.  So if you have thoughts, ideas, or feedback, feel free.

That’s the last mention I’ll have of the party in the blog itself until the day gets much much closer…

In case you are looking for some gift suggestions for me during the holiday season (and it’s just a coincidence that this is brought up after the birthday shindig), there’s a page for that, too.  I will be updating it periodically if I get other ideas, so it may be worth checking more than once.

What else ya got?  Schrubbe pointed me to a post yesterday about how Caprica is getting the green light on the SciFi channel.  Seems like there’s some potential there.  But mostly it makes me think about how season 4b of BSG is going to be starting on January 16.  Who wants to have a catch-up watch party in advance?  After the new year, maybe?

OK, half an hour to go; better do something…

"Roll Your Own", Uncategorized

Eat It

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I find myself in a quandry as my place of employment changes over to a completely web-based email and calendaring system.  For about 4 or 5 years now, I have used my email client (either Outlook or Thunderbird) as my RSS aggregator as well.  I’ve been quite happy with this setup, because I like having browser windows open for Internetting, not really for mail, or word processing, or all the other crazy crap that seems to only be in “the cloud” these days.  In my mind, the beauty of RSS was that is could take the Internet and deliver it to me like mail.

One other issue that I have to admit has started to crop up in Thunderbird is that, since I read feeds in a few different places, I end up with repeats of “new” content, or subscriptions that are out of sync.  So, even though I could probably just stick with Thunderbird and use it only as a feed reader (and I might), I am entertaining other options.  Here are a few of the things that I’d like:

  • I want a reader that I don’t have to pay much attention to. I’m gathering the feeds because I want my cage rattled when there’s something to read.  Even if I’ve gathered a number of feeds in one spot (to avoid traveling to all those sites), it’s still not worth it to me if I have to actively go and look at that page.  So, I need a fairly concrete and active alert system.
  • Which items are new should be completely obvious. This might seem like a “duh” request, but I note it largely due to the RSS functionality built in to Firefox, which, while simple to use, doesn’t have a very intuitive display scheme, and it doesn’t notify you when there are new items.
  • Syncing all my subscriptions would be nice. But it’s not necessarily required.

Soooo, the options that are immediately clear to me are the following (do you know any others?):

  • stick with Thunderbird
  • use the live bookmarks feature in Firefox exclusively
  • pull all my feeds into my netvibes page
  • start using Google Reader
  • download a completely different RSS client (fat chance)

There must be options that I’m overlooking, or things I’m not thinking of, so if you have a comment, by all means feel free to share…

General, Uncategorized

Rash Endorsement

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Per Wordy’s mention in a post from a couple weeks back, I am now on accuradio for my holiday listening pleasure (I listen to Christmas music at work exclusively during the month of December).

I only loaded this mother up about 15 minutes ago, but I am in favor over the live365 that I’ve gone with in the past because it seems I can narrow down the music selection more specifically within this “holiday” genre (i.e., no En Vogue singing “Sleigh Ride” right after Mannheim Steamroller; both nice selections, but if you don’t want to mix them, you shouldn’t have to).

So, if you’re looking to give your season a soundtrack, give it a try.

General, Uncategorized

Welcome To the Saddle. Please Climb In.

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After what feels like at least a 2-week period of not-being-at-work-too-often, time to settle in for the month of December and the home stretch of the fall semester.  This time of year is usually peppered with students who forgot they had a bill to pay to go to school, but even more of them are too busy catching up on all the work they haven’t done all semester long.  So it should be slow, but steady.

At home, I’m going to be focusing on decorating my house for the holidays this week, and getting a jump on shopping.  I have a number of gifts already planned and noted, so it’s just a matter of getting out on the ‘tubes to do the buying.  I’ll also be finishing up a bit of writing, and getting together a plan for New Year’s Eve / my birthday.  FYI, the party is set for Wauwatosa and the Mundschau house, more details to come…

I don’t know how you feel about it, but it seems like the signs of winter are in full force: snow on the ground, Christmas season is here, Red Arrow park is open for skating…  Enjoy your holiday season!  Hopefully I’ll be able to focus enough to work, too.

General, Uncategorized

Well, I Don't Need More Coffee

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I think I drank about half a pot of coffee at home this morning, but I had a need to get on the Internet, so I took a trip into town and the Brew Moon coffeehouse.  They have free wifi.  You can’t just sit outside using their webs like a chump, though, so I had to buy something.  I will drink this coffee very, very slowly…

After a third day of the deer hunt, with one or two to go, I am fairly certain that it will end uneventfully.  Not that big a deal, really.  At least I got to sit in the woods for a while.  I don’t have anything really specific to blog about today, so if you’re busy shopping you can probably just proceed through and ignore this post…

I pulled into my parking space across the street from the coffee joint this morning, and I plugged 50 cents into the meter.  The girl in the car right next to mine stuck her head out the window and said that the meters didn’t do anything anymore, and there was no need to plug ’em.  “Well what the hell are they still here for then?” I laughed.  Probably just to make the out-of-towners look like chumps.  And it worked!

Oh hey, so what the hell happened in India?  Being completely out of touch with current events is probably the most frustrating thing about a weekend spent in E.R.  So I’m going to try to read up on this…

Got some miscellaneous other stuff to get done here and only about an hour to do it, so I’ll just encourage you to enjoy the rest of your holiday weekend…

PS – Going to meet up with Joe and April tomorrow, so I’m looking forward to that.  If you are in Eagle River for whatever reason, feel free to call!

Sports, Uncategorized

Replacement Prognostication: Week 13

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As I watch the hapless Detroit Lions get their collective ass handed to them by the Tennessee Titans, I realized that I need to get on with prognosticating this week in the NFL.  I AM going to take credit for calling the Lions game, too, because seriously: it’s just been a gimme all year, so…

However, with the dial-up situation here in E.R., time to cut the chatter and present my picks for Week 13.

SEASON RECORD: 41-20, BONUS PICKS: 3-2

  • Packers – win (they have to eventually)
  • Bears – win
  • Vikings – lose
  • Lions – lose
  • Chiefs – win
  • Seahawks – lose
  • Dolphins – win

BONUS PICKS!!!

  • Eagles – lose
  • Giants – lose
  • Jets – lose
  • Pats – lose
General, Uncategorized

Meanwhile, Back At the Hall of Justice…

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Came back into town on Tuesday for a brief stop at the office, some laundry, watching The Office, Heroes, and downloading some podcasts for the trip back up north.  Being “off the grid” for a couple days leaves me with a slightly uneasy feeling when I get back and news has broken that I didn’t know about.  But at the same time, it’s very freeing.  I should probably consider turning off the Internet for longer stretches of time.

I thought the Twitter updates worked out well enough.  Over this weekend, I’m going to try to make more use of the full 140 characters available per tweet.  I think it could be an interesting challenge to force that sort of economy on my thoughts.

What else can I tell you?  Ooohh– be on the lookout for Jason’s gift list, an oft-requested feature at this time of year.  It is scheduled to pop in time for all you zany Black Friday shoppers…

Info on New Year’s/birthday events coming soon, too.  If I miss you, have a great Thanksgiving!

Twitter, Uncategorized

We'll Give It Another Shot

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I tried Twitter very briefly for a couple days back in May.  It was of virtually absolutely no use to me.  Part of it was, “why the hell would I blog fewer than 140 characters?” and another part was, “If I spend all my time telling people what I’m doing, I won’t get anything done,” and still another part was, “I don’t have all these text messages to burn…”

There are a few changes that have occurred since that caused me to reconsider.  Here in the present, I have a lot more texts at my disposal per month; I’ve switched to a more text-happy plan and can afford to “waste” them on dumb stuff like twitter.  Second, I found a nice Twitter plugin for WordPress, so I don’t have to tell anyone, “hey, go to this other page to find more updates from me,” instead they will all just be aggregated here and posted on a daily basis.  Finally, as I prepare for my annual trek to the Northwoods for the hunt, it dawned on me that I can relay texts from my phone much faster than taking the time to dial up to the web @ Mom and Dad’s, wait for my page to load, write a post, etc., etc…. I think you get it.

Anyway, be on the lookout for the ‘tweets,’ at least while I’m in E.R., and if I suddenly find Twitter to be worthwhile, then hey– I guess I’ll need to upgrade my messaging plan again.

Sports, Uncategorized

Replacement Prognostication: Week 12

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Your NFL division leaders have the following records, in no particular order: 7-3, 7-3, 6-4, 10-0, 9-1, 5-5, 8-2, 7-3.  Bears, Packers, and Vikings fans, rejoice!  Your underacheiving squad of ragamuffins still has a shot at winning this thing and making the playoffs.  With as little bias as I can muster, I’m going to say that the Packers will end up taking the NFC North.

I base this assessment on their schedule, and the team’s performance last week against the Bears.  It was the sort of “complete” game that the Pack played on numerous occasions last year, en route to a 13-3 record.  Now the team has to prove that this group, led by Mike McCarthy, will not pull a Sherman and play down to their competition week after week (in retrospect, those Mike Sherman-coached Packers should have won a lot more post-season games).

With 6 games to go, it’s also reasonable to say the Packers COULD run the table– they have several games left against some 2008 also-rans.  Maybe they lose to Carolina or Chicago and end up 10-6 (shrugs).  But in looking at the others in “the lead” in this division, I see QB as the Vikings achilles heel, and the defense will be it for the Bears (can’t BELIEVE I just wrote that).

But there are anywhere from 7 to 48 other teams playing each week, too, so enough lolly-gagging, and on to Week 12.

SEASON RECORD: 36-18, 2-0 in BONUS PICKS

  • Packers – win
  • Bears – win
  • Vikings – lose
  • Lions – lose
  • Chiefs – lose
  • Seahawks – lose
  • Dolphins – lose

BONUS PICKS!!!

  • Giants – win
  • Jets – lose
  • Titans – win
  • Eagles – win

If you’re donning the blaze orange this weekend, good luck and be safe.  That is all.

General, Uncategorized

SEASON FIVE!!

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Radiolab is finally back with new shows!!!  Fire up the link and listen to ‘Choice’ when you get a chance.  If you haven’t sampled this show in the past, I encourage you to listen to EVERYTHING that they have on their site.  I don’t remember a bad show from these guys.  Seriously.

I have turned into such a certifiable public-/talk-radio geek, sometimes I amaze even myself.  Maybe the most amazing thing, actually, is that more people aren’t turning off the radio and looking for some worthwhile content elsewhere.  I mean, I like Led Zeppelin and the Beatles as much as anybody, but I can only hear “Whole Lotta Love” and “Come Together” on the radio so many times before I want to shoot myself in the chest.

Where are you getting the new and exciting things that you listen to?

firing from the hip since 2002