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Gotham Gal and I are John and Yoko tonight

2008-10-31T21:30:00.001-05:00

Gotham Gal and I are John and Yoko tonight, originally uploaded by fredwilson.

now that's NY

why i haven't been buying blue-ray versions

2008-10-17T08:15:00.000-05:00

HD-DVD is dead - but they did one thing really well: they released titles with HD-DVD on one side, and normal DVD format on the other side.   This was great because with one purchase, you could play the disc wherever you may roam.

Blue-Ray hasn't taken this approach.   You buy a Blue-Ray disc that only plays in Blue-Ray players. I hope this has something to do with double sidedness and not marketing. They are packaging an iTunes version with some releases and this is great, but it leaves me out in the cold in a few particular situations.

The biggest one is the car. People don't buy cars every year. And as more and more family trucksters have DVD players in them, they are only putting in normal old DVD players.   This means none of your Blue-Ray discs will play in your car.

Stag beetle love

2008-09-18T21:20:00.001-05:00

Stag beetle love, originally uploaded by steveobd.

My driveway is full of critters.

Chimp zoo breakout foiled by banana

2008-07-27T21:09:00.001-05:00

I think my favorite part of the accompanying news story is

Eventually the chimp was lured with a banana and then sedated.

If you watch the video, this chimp is pretty smart and goes and grabs the tranquilizer gun, yet he can't resist the lure of a banana. How stereotypical!

One of a hundred flacid penii

2008-07-27T13:20:00.001-05:00

One of a hundred flacid penii, originally uploaded by steveobd.

Scuptures in Italy abound.

I miss the red lights

2008-07-25T23:34:00.001-05:00

tokyo 017, originally uploaded by steveobd.

I must get back to Tokyo soon. There's something about the red flashing lights in the distance that's like nowhere else on earth.

The $75 limit at the pump

2008-07-25T23:27:00.001-05:00

Gah!!!, originally uploaded by parrillo.

This happened to me the other day too. I could not fill my tank with gas, because the $75 limit took over before my tank was full. Friggin' amazing.

I also noticed that Hertz no longer charges you $2+ more than the price of a gallon when you return the car empty, becuse you'd be paying $7 for a gallon of gas. They now charge a flat $6.99 service fee + the pump price.

I really hope this oil crisis makes us figure out how to make things cleaner and more efficient like we did in the Carter era.

I can't stand driving anywhere anymore.

Jul 20, 2008

2008-07-25T23:23:00.001-05:00

Jul 20, 2008, originally uploaded by steveobd.

For no particular reason, this reminds me of my favorite quake haiku:

It is five o'clock
time for a little quake
oh look, now it's ten

when the devil tells you that you have too much in your inbox

2008-07-10T17:12:00.001-05:00

Woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil sends the beast with wrath, for he knows that his time is short. Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number. It's number is six-hundred and sixty six (Revelation 12:12 )

Yah, I got way too much to do. First things first, sacrifice a goat.

Bonsai Sheepskin Sandals - Sandals for All Seasons

2008-06-30T13:59:00.000-05:00

Bonsai Sheepskin Sandals - Sandals for All Seasons

I already own about 10 pairs of flip flops, but these look wicked, and you can never have enough flip-flops IMO. You need about 3 for every entrance/exit in the house. I'll y'all know how they pan out.

BlackBerry mascots

2008-06-27T21:18:00.000-05:00

I wonder what the heck BlackBerry mascots are. Some dude dressed up in a BlackBerry suit?

BlackBerry - Life on BlackBerry

validation

2008-06-27T17:37:00.000-05:00

You're not going to believe this... this Prince from Sierre Leone contacted me via email today. He needs help receiving his inheritance with the help of my bank account. Me?! can you believe it?!

I'm always amazed at this type of spam. There must be some small percentage of people that fall for this, otherwise these emails wouldn't be persisting to be sent for so long.

I tried to use Open Office, I swear

2008-06-27T07:42:00.001-05:00

Recently I got a Mac Book Air because my Mac Book was just way too big. I decided this time around I was going to try to not install MS Office on this laptop. The 80GB hard drive is already too small, and just didn't want to start mucking it up with bloated apps I didn't really need.

At work, I use Google Docs for about 95% of the usual document communication. For collaborative documents and spreadsheets, there really is no better tool IMO for a work environment. However there's that 5% of the time I just really need to use a client side presentation tool. The Presentations in Google Docs are again great for collaborative efforts, but sometimes you just need to use Powerpoint to drag and drop images, or deal with standard PPT templates or whatever.

I tried, I really tried to use Open Office. I installed it on my Mac, with no MS Office, and I tried to use it exclusively to create my presentations for the last month. But it didn't work out. With all the latest versions and patches, it just couldn't render the standard template we use correctly, and our standard template is really, really, simple.

So here I am installing Office 2008. Sigh. Maybe next laptop.

Wild Alaskan Salmon Company

2008-06-22T08:55:00.000-05:00

Wild Alaskan Salmon Company

This might be my favorite URL ever: Seabeef.com for a salmon company. Awesome.

What's up with cars at SFO?

2008-06-22T08:08:00.003-05:00

Renting a car at SFO this week has been a tough gig. Not sure what's going on.

When renting cars in general, I modify Hertz's slogan a bit to: There's Hertz, there's the "Avis" of car renting, Avis, and then there's everyone else. Actually, Budget's FastBreak program isn't too bad.

This week I had to drop down to Enterprise, no other agency had *any* cars at SFO - should be interesting to see how this pans out. I'm more worried about having to wait in the line after getting off the plane for an hour since there's no walk-directly-to-the-car and drive away option for Enterprise (for me).

At least it's not Thrifty.

Puma Humor

2008-06-20T10:27:00.002-05:00

Puma Humor, originally uploaded by steveobd.

As some of you know, I collect soccer, football, futbol, and calcio jerseys from my travels abroad, and when you buy a real one (as opposed to the fakes the thousands of vendors in their kiosks sell) they are usually from a name brand such as Adidas (it's always easy to remember how to spell that!) , Nike, Lotto, etc. Well this year, the Italian national jersey is made by Puma ( did you know the founders of Adidas and Puma were brothers?) and reading the tags attached to the jersey I came across something funny.

You gotta love companies that like to have fun with their customers, and don't take themselves too seriously.

At any rate I love this "Research" tab. It's too bad Puma shoes are too narrow for my already narrow feet.

#100 Bumper Stickers « Stuff White People Like

2008-06-19T22:18:00.000-05:00

For my comedy blog dollar, it doesn't get much better than Stuff White People Like. It's funny enough for me to bear that awful feed flare knockoff they use in their feed in that funky font.

Take #100 Bumper stickers for example:

The safest and most accepted choice for a sticker is always one that supports a Democratic Presidential candidate (Ralph Nader is an acceptable substitute). As of February 2008, white law requires an Obama 08 bumper sticker to be placed on the back of every Prius. Though these stickers reach peak effectiveness during an election year, it is acceptable to leave this sticker on the car until the next election regardless of whether or not the candidate actually won. If it’s a disputed election like in 2000, the sticker can be left on for the life of the car.

As Homer Simpson once said, "it's funny 'cause it's true." I still see Gore stickers on cars in my county.

fresh fish

2008-06-19T22:07:00.001-05:00

fresh fish, originally uploaded by steveobd.

Gotta get back to Tokyo soon. The sushi is just unbeatable.

At some point, I'm going to get like Elvis. Fat, bloated, dead on the toilet Elvis - who would get in the jet from Memphis to Denver for his peanut butter and banana sandwiches, because they just didn't taste the same in Memphis as they did in denver.

mmm. Sushi.

Italian Bamboo

2008-06-19T21:55:00.001-05:00

Bamboo, originally uploaded by steveobd.

Until last week, I wasn't aware that bamboo grew in Italy. But there's a lot of it, all over the place in Northern Tuscany.

Q: How did it get there?

A: On the same boat as spaghetti, with Marco Polo. (even though this is now disputed on Wikipedia).

jetlag sucks

2008-06-19T07:36:00.002-05:00

Man, am I out of practice on international travel. Apparently even if you destroy your circadian rhythms, you can get them back! After nine days in Europe and 3 days back, I'm still living on CET time, going to sleep at 7pm, getting up at 2am. Arrrgh. I used to be able to get back on timezone in one day.

It's generally why I like short international trips on business...go in for 2 days, stay on CST timezone, and come back. Stay up until 10, and I'm back.

my new favorite mouse

2008-06-17T06:36:00.002-05:00

I usually don't get excited about such things as a mouse, but I picked up one of these Kensington SlimBlade Bluetooth mice on a whim, and it's awesome. First of all it's wireless, and automatically connects and disconnects from my mac when i go through various states of suspension and re-animation. Second, it switches between a two button mouse with a scroll wheel, and a trackball with one double-click of a special button. Third, it just feels great.

Kensington SlimBlade Trackball Bluetooth mouse

I could see me getting 2 or 3 of these for various computers I use.

Rainbow in Tuscany

2008-06-11T15:08:00.001-05:00

Rainbow in Tuscany
Originally uploaded by steveobd

Look hard to see the rainbow as a storm moves in over Tuscany.

This is the view over the back of our olive grove this week.

No Hulu outside the U.S.

2008-06-09T16:02:00.002-05:00

Not that I'm going to watch it but it's interesting that Hulu.com isn't available outside of the US. Yeah, wouldn't want the Italians to suck in too much Welcome Back, Kotter. Don't want to let them see Vinny Barbarino.

Real life Viva Piñata

2008-05-29T00:04:00.004-05:00

Last week we noticed a rabbit's foot and rabbit ears in our yard (with none of the rest of the rabbit). A day later, a bird beak, and bird feed. Yes, something was up...chupacabra?

Nope. Turns out we had a mother and baby red tailed hawk roosting in our tree. The mother was teaching the baby how to hunt and eat. She would prey on a hapless rabbit in the yard, bring it up into the walnut tree, and show the baby how to tear it apart.

Now, it seems the mother has gone, and left the keys to the mansion with the baby. This picture was taken today right after the baby (which is getting bigger every day) had killed a smaller bird, and was picking it apart on the branch above us. When it was done, the feet fell to the ground and the baby hawk moved on to another tree.

Pretty cool to see the food chain in action right there in your backyard.

You know your man is working hard...

2008-05-19T16:21:00.001-05:00

You know your man is working hard...
Originally uploaded by steveobd

We recently won tickets at a Charity auction to go see a KISS cover band called Mr. Speed. It was a cool show to being with because it was in a converted movie theater where I think I saw Star Wars as a kid. That's the movie you youngin's call A New Hope.

At any rate, the Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley characters were especially believable in their roles and the kids loved it.

I only noticed later when looking at this picture that my son was mimicking the Gene character. That was totally unrehearsed - they both did it for the camera without an ounce of prompting!