Category: Weblog

Five short years

Well, I’ve never been one that remembers dates well, and it took me almost a month to remember this one.
A little over five years ago, in January 2000, I first started blogging. At the time I was using NewsPro a proto-blogging tool designed for news sites more than personal sites. I don’t think people called them weblogs back then.
In any case, I’ve enjoyed writing these entries and hope to keep entertaining you, the loyal Cruft reader, for several more years.

What you need to know about flashlights

Of particular interest to tech-oriented people are the newer high end flashlights now available at lower and lower prices. But how to know what features are good and which are worthless?
Have now fear, my co-worker from the past, Richard Hess, can help you out. Richard has written THE definitive page on flashlights. Now, Richard takes his admiration of prtable a lighting a bit farther than I would, but the resource is great for anyone considering a high-end flashlight.
Richard is the guy that taught me about voltage-matched audio and proper grounding systems when I was a new TV engineer just out of college. Those two lessons have served me well throughout my career.
The voltage-matched audio is pure broadcast geekery at it’s finest, and usually only appreciated by other TV engineers. Grounding systems are common to almost all technical professions and usually widely ignored in areas like IT until sparks start shooting off of racks.
Some of my most vehement professional arguements have been over grounding with ignorant blockheads who think that placing racks on wooden blocks is a sound method. There’s a guy up at the CBC that had me ready to fly up there with a copper grounding bar and bash some sense into him.

Miles Update

Previously, I encouraged you to go check out Miles Mosley. I had downloaded his music and found that the ID3 tags were incomplete and didn’t appear correctly on my MP3 player.
I fixed up the MP3 files with correct ID3 tags and even added an image. I’ve sent the files back to Miles for hopefully inclusion onto his site.
Until then, you can download a zip of the songs with full ID3 info.
Take a few minutes to listen to the music, I think you’ll like it.

Lucky Puffs

You see them at the convience stores and you can’t help but wonder about what they really are. Yes, I’m talking about Hostess Sno Balls, the normally bright pink, coconut covered treats found next to the Twinkies.
Yesterday I was at 7-Eleven and saw that there were not one, but TWO, variations on the normal Sno Ball.


I took it upon myself to investigate. Here we have the green colored Lucky Puffs and the purple colored Easter Sno Balls. With St. Patrick’s Day and Easter on the horizon, Hostess is wasitng no effort to make customers happy with new products.

I unwrapped the items and got a clear look at what I was dealing with here. They looked absolutely identical, except in color. They were spongy to the touch and had absolutely no aroma. If I didn’t know otherwise, I could have confused it as a child’s stuffed animal.

I carefully sliced the treats in half and saw that they had the same insides, the difference appeared to be only the color of the coconut on the outside.

This is a close-up of the Lucky Puff. The chocolate cake and creme filling are the usual tasty Hostess stuff you’ll find in a Ding Dong or Cupcake.
The marshmellow stuff is kinda nasty. It’s not like a traditional marshmellow, with an extremely artifical texture and flavor. I can only imagine is being concocted in a lab somewhere by people in white coats from chemicals and not actual food products.
Myself, I like coconut in all forms, so the best part was sucking the colored coconut off the marshmellow to partake in the fibery goodess of the tropical fruit.
I’ve eaten 1/2 of one of the 4 Sno Balls/Lucky Puffs. I’ve got 3 1/2 left if anyone wants some, I’m sure they’ll last several weeks/months without ill effect.

What’s Crackin’ ?

Last night the Scarymommy and I headed out to the rock show, as the missus calls it. The main attraction was the Uptown Lights, a new band from Greg Dulli, the front man behind the Afgan Whigs and the Twilight Singers. Michele’s all about seeing Greg Dulli play. Back in the day, she was a bartender back in Cincinnati he used to play at the laundromat/bar (no lie).
The tickets didn’t mention an opening band, but a group took the stage at 10 and start to play. The lead picked up the stand-up bass and began to rock the house. The band is Miles Mosley, and they play some good jazz. I’m not talking about that crappy shit that Kenny G plays, I’m talking about the good shit that you want to hear when hanging with your friends or out for a night on the town with your baby.
Take a listen to What’s Crackin’. Go ahead, take a listen, I’ll wait…
Now, ain’t that some good stuff? This junk mellow jazz that is floating around sucks, and it had me thinking I didn’t like jazz. Well, I do like jazz, at least I like the Brothel Jazz as Miles plays it.
I stopped after the show and told him how much I like the music. He handed me a book to sign up for his mailing list and I was happy to oblige. He was grinning ear to ear after playing to a packed house and getting a good response from the crowd who was there to see someone else.
So, do yourself a favor and head over to the Miles Mosley site and check it out. We’ll be seeing his next show, whenever that is.
And for you social software types, note that he’s using Livejournal as the tool behind his web site. At first I was ‘Wha? LJ for a site?’ then I realized what a smart move it was. With LJ, fans can easily keep track of what Miles is up to by adding him as a friend. I doubt most LJers use aggregators and rely on their friends list to keep them up to date. By using Livejournal, Miles is going to be able to develop a fan community around him simply and organicly. The only thing I’d do is make the LJ access a little more obvious so there was a call to action for people that know what LJ is in the same place where you can sign up for the email list.

Happy New Year’s

On the 9th, it became the Year of the Rooster on the Chinese calendar. Chinese New Year is upon us and it is a good time for all.
I took the girls down to Chinatown in LA for them to get a little taste of their heritage. The parade started around 2 two o’clock on Satuday and we were lucky enough to but into friends and get seats on the curb.
This is a close to a small town parade as we get in LA and the mode was fun and casual. I forgot my regular camera, so you get my phonecam photos.


There were a few floats paying homage to the Rooster.
Among them were several floats with Chinatown Queen/Princesses, but the images were crappy.

I have to give props to the Teo Chew Association for their spectacular float.

The people on the float tossed out candy & red envelopes to the kids.
Zoe was lucky (and fast) enough to get a red envelope with a lucky quarter in it.

The highlight of the parade was the dragons.
They danced around the street with the drums beating.
Beautiful colors and designs on the dragons.

This dragons came in for a close look at the girls.

I highly recommend a visit to Chinatown. The food is cheap, the bargains are plenty, and it’s the complete opposite of the ‘planned shopping environments’ popping up across the Southland.