Cruftbox: My Box of Cruft

I went out to several industry parties last night. Free food, free drinks. Who can complain? One party even had nice capacolla ham on the anti-pasta platter. Mmmmm, that’s good eating.

Before heading back to the hotel, we stopped by a Davidoff cigar store and picked up some cigar. Actually, Bob & Brad chose them, I just helped pay. Drunk shopping for cigars isn’t pretty.

Again, I had trouble keeping the damn thing lit. Others seem to do this effortlessly, but not I. Perhaps a cigar class is in order.

More meetings today. Everyone wants to sell me stuff.

While I enjoy Vegas, I miss sleeping at home. Hotel rooms always remind me of crime novels.

I can’t concieve how people can be on the net without broadband. Modem access is simply suxxor. The Mirage Hotel, where I am staying doesn’t have any internet access at all. They are teh suck.

I’m in Vegas for the NAB convention. Joy. Too bad Michele couldn’t have come along. Vegas solo is not so much fun.

I had a quick dinner and Denny’s (salad & Superbird no tomatoes) and went next door to the cinema to see Big Trouble. I have to say, it wasn’t bad. Kinda like Get Shorty, but not as fast and sharp. In the middle of the movie my phone rang. Business at 8PM Sunday? Nope. It was my mother calling to chat. Sorry Mom, but for $8.25 for the movie, I’m going to watch it.

Walking back tot he hotel I stopped by a Walgreens to pick up a package of Listermints. Happily I found a diet food section and snatched some no-carb chocolate bars and Balance bars. After Saturday’s crayfish boil, I need to get back on the Zone Diet.

Yes, the crayfish boil. My fraternity brother, Len had a big crayfish boil. I had never eaten crayfish before. There were SIXTY pounds of LIVE crayfish there when we arrived. Trust me, that is a shitload of crayfish. I took a bunch of pictures but I didn’t have time to prep them and make a page.

Back to today… After Walgreens, I continued down the strip and saw the glowing neon words “Internet Cafe”. Woot! I walk in sit down and the cool speed of broadband rolls over me.

Enough blogging, time to check my email.

BTW, Newspro 3.8 is markedly better than 3.7.

OK, I’m fading fast tonight. Here’s your linkage.

Choker Sandwich – Martin’s page
Megarad – Much geekage and net culture
Cockeyed – I bow to the master…
Trollaxor – With lines like “when some overly-serious goatée-stroking k5er”, who can resist?
Good Eats – My cooking guru. All hail Alton Brown

On the book front I am reading remix by Jon Courtenay Grimwood. It’s fantastic. The book says ‘William Gibson meets Quentin Tarantino’ buts it’s more like ‘Neal Stephenson meets Robert Heinlein’.

Now leave me alone…

I’m back in LA and the whirlwind just doesn’t stop.

Work is hectic and with my trip to NAB next week coming, home is hectic as well. So much to do, so little time.

To top it all off, my eyes are killing me. If I take off my contacts to give them a rest, I can barely see with my glasses on.

I have some MLP for joo all, but it’ll have to wait until later tonight…

I am at the in-laws house and using a laptop with a wireless link to the DSL hub. OMFG, this is sweet. I can walk around with the computer and surf the web simultaneously.

Currently, I am lying on my back in bed typing while chatting with my wife in the bathroom. Ecstasy.

I cannot be allowed to buy a laptop and hook up 802.11 in my house. I would never be off the net…

Since this Segway news has been made public, I can now post this.

My Segway Adventure

OK, Newspro is updated and I am good to go.

I have been considering new blogging software, but have no firm opinion yet. Movable Type looks interesting, but more research is order. My brother uses Blogger Pro on his blog and loves it. But I dunno. Running the weblog through a third party site is a little risky for my tastes. If anyone has an opinion, let me know.

Before the road trip I finished Sleeping Dogs. I liked it as much as Butcher’s Boy. It is strange to be rooting for the hitman to get away in the novel. He is a stone cold killer, yet Perry makes him the protaganist.

In the condo we were staying at was a few shelves of crime/mystery novels. I picked up Maximum Bob by Elmore Leonard. I finished the book in a day (what else am I supposed to do while the wife is at the quilt show?). Leonard is a master of characters and dialogue, but in this novel he just didn’t end it well. The pace and intertwining stories all kept me pulling through the novel, but the end was curt, unexpected, and left many loose threads untied.

Am I at the end of my reading binge? I dunno, I have another plane ride on Monday… The new Jedi Knight game arrives Tuesday or Wednesday, so I will be preoccupied soon enough.

At first it looked like I wasn’t going to get into the Burn Baby Burn CD swap, but now I am!

Even though my loathsome brother tried to kill my participation, I managed to get involved anyway. Muah-ha-ha-ha…

Once I get home I can start pouring through my CD collection to find appropriate songs for the compilation.

I’m in Cincinnati. I was a little blurry in my last post. Actually, we had made it from Santa Fe to Rolla, Missouri on the first day. A little over 900 miles in a day.

After five hours sleep, we got up and drove from Rolla to Cincinnati, Ohio. It rained on us most of the way so the last 450 miles was a pain. We arrived in Cincinnati around 6 PM, just in time for dinner.

More later. I’m tired.

We are just outside Joplin, Missouri. We travelled roughly 760 miles yesterday.

Gotta go, Waffle House for breakfast…