Cruftbox: My Box of Cruft

Several weeks ago, I was looking at gmailswap and saw an offer that said “Shoot the guns from Counterstrike.” and I was intrigued. The offer was to go to a rifle range in LA and shot several assailed weapons commonly found in video games.
Sounded like a deal to me and I sent the invite. My new friend Jason, emailed back promptly with tons of details. This weekend I finally had enough free time and we met at the shooting range.
Jason is a huge gun enthusiast and has an encyclopedia like knowledge of firearms and gun laws. Truly an expert, he spent the day explaining almost every aspect of guns and what the gun law changes meant to collectors. When I heardcould him explain things about some of the bans on magazines I could see how useless the laws were. We went out to Angeles Shooting Range
I brought my rifle, a Mosin Nagant 91/30 and about 40 rounds of ammo. Jason had a ton of stuff and we promptly got set up on the rifle range.

This is a Colt HBAR aka AR-15, the civilian version of the M-16.
This is the kind of rifle the troops in Iraq are using.

The rifle was light and with little recoil compared to the other rifles.
Besides the comfortable feel, it was accurate and easy to fire repeatedly without drifting off target.

Continue reading “What a Gmail invite gets you”

Friday night I finally saw Napolean Dynamite.
The movie is a snapshot of a while in the life of a young teenager from Idaho in his struggle to fit in. Like the vast majority of us, Napolean is not one of the popular people at school. He got strange hobbies, a strange family and is uncomfortable around girls. Sounds like me in high school…
The filmmakers have a distinct style and simply let many of the scenes happen slowly rather than pushing through the story in rapid sequences with multiple camera angles. I’m sure there’s some film school term for it, but I found it refreshing.
The basic message of the film is that good things do happen to people. In the film, the characters tend to be accepting of these good things rather than waiting for great things instead. For example, older brother Kip finally meets his ‘internet girlfriend’ LaFawndah and falls for her. Rather than rejecting her because she is not perfect, Kip accepts that a good thing has happened and goes for it.
I think may of us could heed this message. Accepting the good things in life and not rejecting everything that isn’t perfect, is something all of use should do. I’m not saying people shouldn’t strive for what they want, but we should take joy and comfort in what we do have.
I had hoped for greatness and endless repeatable lines, but the film didn’t rise to that pinnacle. It’s a wonderful film, but it won’t raise to the stature of Ghostbusters or Caddyshack when it comes to phases that enter the general vernactular. The lines are funny, but without the visuals, they kinda fall flat in normal conversation. I mean, how many times does the opportunity come around to say “The defect in this one is bleach.“? It’s a funny line, but rarely used. Compare that to “Dogs and cats, living together…mass hysteria!” from Ghostbusters. The ghostbusters line can find it’s way into almost any conversation.
So go see this movie and enjoy the goodness.
My favorite line in the movie is by Kip: “Napoleon, don’t be jealous that I’ve been chatting online with babes all day. Besides, we both know that I’m training to be a cage fighter.”

Jonah of LABlogs.com asks a few questions of LA bloggers.
1. How long have you lived in Los Angeles?
32 out of 37 years. 4 years in New York, 1 year in San Francisco.
2. Were you born here?
Yes, born and raised in the South Bay.
3. How long did you plan on staying here originally?
After I got married, we had planned to live in San Francisco forever.
4. How long do you plan on staying here now?
Probably forever. Possibly we could move after the girls finish school and college (16+ years…)
5. What keeps you here?
Works, schools, the weather, the tolerance of diversity.
6. What makes you want to leave?
The smog and the traffic.
7. What is your biggest suprise about living here?
That so many people hate LA in the rest of the country, especially New Yorkers.
8. What is your biggest disappointment about living here?
We don’t get to see fall colors and we don’t get to see winter become spring with the appearance of green. Back east, these times of the year are glorious.

I’m seeing Napoleon Dynamite tonight at 7:50 PM at the Laemmle’s Playhouse 7 in Pasadena.
Drinks & coffee afterward…
Anyone else want to show up so I’m not that freaky guy that goes to the movies by himself on Friday night?

I dropped Michele and the girls off at the airport this morning at 5AM. They arrived safely this afternoon in Cincinnati for a two week visit.
That means that the house will be empty and I will have no responsibilities outside of work for two weeks. This has happened in the past and I have not taken full advantage of the situation. Typically I would work late, grab some fast food on the way home, fall asleep on the couch around 8PM, wake up around midnight, putter around until 2 or 3 in the morning and then sleep. The next day I would be tired from staying up late, so I would fall asleep on the couch around 8PM, etc., etc.
This time I need to give myself a set of goals and make a plan to keep myself busy.
Here’s the rough list of things to do I came up with:

Daily


• Feed fish
  
• Eat fruit
  
• Check/water plants
  
• Dishes/paper/trash
  

In the next two weeks


• Dinner with Mom
  
• Remove stump from front yard
  
• Put up shelves in the girls room
  
• See Zaitoichi, Donnie Darko, Napoleon Dynamite
  
• Go shoot my rifle
  
• Go see a live band
  
• Reprep laptop
  
• Plan that blogging thing
  
• Sell all that stuff on Ebay
  
• Ride my bicycle
  
• Try a Mochaberry at Borders
  
• Do the hot sauce experiment
  

This is the one thousandth post on my weblog.
I started an ‘official’ weblog on January 21st, 2000. I had been posting info on the net for several years before that, but that was the moment I began using software to update my site. At the time, I was using software called Newspro that was all the rage.
I started the site because I was inspired by a site called Lum the Mad. Lum wrote about online gaming and was hilarious sarcastic in doing it. He closed down the site after a while, but he had inspired me to begin writing. Scott (Lum’s real name) still runs a weblog at Broken Toys.
The first real content I posted on the net besides baby pictures is called The most expensive cup of coffee back in August of 1997. Even after almost seven years, it’s still a funny story.
So there you have it, after almost four and a half years of pure weblogging and seven year of posting on the internet, I’ve hit a thousand entries.
While a few of my entries have been of the ‘sorry I haven’t posted’ genre, for the most part, I’ve tried to make it interesting for people besides my mother, who likes everything I say or right (except fucking profanity, she hates the profanity).
I wonder what the next thousand will be like.
Here are a few entries you might enjoy:
When I liked Netscape instead of IE
A what I ate for dinner post
A lunch observation
That time I almost died in the hospital
Competitive Twinkie Eating
The death of Pom-Pom
Seven toothbrushes, four people
Photoblogging

As my daughters get older and more tech saavy, I am challenged to keep them entertained. On our last trip, I brought not one, but TWO laptops to keep the DVDs rolling on the flights. Still, we ran out of batteries.
I thought about other options and stumbled onto the GBA Movie Player. It allows you to convert video down to low bitrates, put it on an compact flash card, and play the video on your Gameboy Advance. That sounds cool, but the conversion on media seems like asking for some headaches.
Last weekend I stumbled upon Majesco Gameboy Advance Video. It looks like the conversion headache is solved. The cartridges have episodes on them and are ready to roll.

I read this on Anil Dash’s site today.
“There’s a part of me that’s always felt that, if you’re a professional at a certain trade, and I can come in as an amateur and do better than you, then you probably suck.”
Preach on brother…