Cruftbox: My Box of Cruft

My brother mention that there were a few things out of date on my site. So I’ve fixed a few things up here and there. Here are a few of the changes:
My mother’s weblog, egads, she’s 60+ and obsessed with blogging…
I linked to a story from 1997 about coffee, wow I’ve been posting stories on the net for almost six years.
Please let me know if you see any problems or have any questions. Most of the changes were subtle, but you never know what I may have messed up.

Some people want to know what Smap is. Well, here’s me and some Smap.

As far as I can tell, Smap is both a Japanese Soft Drink and a Japanese pop band. I have not summoned the courage to drink Smap yet, but I will soon and report back.

This is what victory looks like.
That’s my new overnight parking permit that arrived in the mail. I can’t wait to change some other ordinance in South Pas.
In ohter news, Heidi is using the cool little buttons too!

Summer is rapidly approaching and I’ve decided to put a gable attic fan in the house to clear the hot air out. I looked up the various models on the net and saw a good deal at Home Depot. The web site said the local store had them in stock.
I drove over there and found the roofing section. The one gable fan they had was out of it’s box and had obviously been returned with parts missing. WTF? I looked around for another sealed box, but it was not to be found.
Empty handed, I drove home. It took me 4 minutes to buy the fan online. Free shipping don’tcha know! Sometimes I don’t know why I leave home…

Jake over at 8bitJoystick did a much better review of the Animatrix than I did, go read his. The whole site is good, so poke around after you read the review.
The local city paper is online. You can read the details of the Great Tree Debate at southpasadenareview.com. In this weeks paper version, there is a photo of Michele and I at the school open house on our picnic blanket. It doesn’t get much more small town that getting your picture in the paper when you are simply eating dinner.
The price of DVD burners keeps dropping. Today’s Fry’s ad shows a DVD+R/+RW on sale for $169. If only it was -R/-RW I’d be good to go. The + type don’t read in either of our DVD players.
Time for work. Mabe I’ll stop on the way and pick up a Moroccan Mint Tea Latte. Mmmm, tasty.

Do to a combination of allergies, nausea, and general feeling like crap I took the day off from work to rest at home. Ever since I ended up in the ICU after feeling sick for a while, I’ve tried to get rest when I feel bad.
This morning I finished up watching Reign of Fire, the dragons in England flick. It was OK, but left me a bit disappointed. The characters were quite over the top, but the storytelling didn’t match the characters. The story was realistic, but the it didn’t match up to the people on screen.
After that I watched part of the Animatrix DVD. I had seen part of the it ont he web, but have the DVD is much better. The animation is great and shows several different styles. If only other movies had such enveloping back stories, it would be wonderful.
Supposedly Lucas is doing some sort of Clone Wars animation before the next Star Wars movie limps to the screen, but I’m just not that interested. Lucas is a great writer and art director, but his movie direction is the suck.
I did some work email but tried to get some rest rather than just work at home instead of at the office. Michele bought me Yoshinoya for lunch, so I even had comfort food.
Politics
John Ashcroft is trying to expand the Patriot Act. When is America going to wake up to this demagogue and the peril he poses to our basic liberties.
Kill the Patriot Act.
Call your Senators and Representatives. Explain how this single issue will cost them your vote and your money. Forget about calling the White House, they don’t care what the American people think and are willing to lie to our faces.

For the last two days my stomach has been queasy after I eat. Nasty feeling, like I’m going to hurl, but I don’t want to hurl.
Maybe I haven’t been gaming enough. Yeah, that’s it. I need to play more games…

I’m feeling quite Smappy today. Kinda sick, but not bad enough to stay home.
Stopped by Best Buys with the lunch crew and picked up the Animatrix DVD for myself and the Castle in the Sky DVD for the girls. During the afternoon I still felt crappy and was pleased when the end of the day arrived. Spending my waking hours looking at 20 pages of a ‘Chart of Accounts’ is suck ass.
On the way home Michele told me the Diggs were coming over for dinner. Sweet. Hanging with the Diggs is always a good time.
Michele made some kind of baked zucchini with meat/something filling and grilled up some filets outside. It was good chatting with Martin, but I felt a little down. As loyal Cruft readers may know, the Diggs are leaving town for a brief respite from La-La Land in Kansas. I know that it’s for the best, but it still sucks. The Diggs are our best friends and have been a fixture in our lives since for the last six years.
Imagining that they won’t be around to hang with by 4th of July is hard to wrap my head around. I want to wake up from a bad dream.
Michele always says ‘Change is good, but it is hard’. True. It’s going to be hard.

I just finished watching the first episode of The Wire, the best show on HBO (and TV in general for that matter). The episode is on the Tivo and I’m faced with wanting to keep it for a while.
I’ve played around with recording the video into the computer and futzing around with it until I can record it to DVD or VCD. It’s a bit of a pain.
Today at the office I was talking to my boss about DVD recorders and we discussed that how the simple ones should go for much cheaper this Christmas season. I looked up the prices and was suprised. If you look at the Panasonic line, you see a bunch listing for $500 list. A few searches and I find them on sale for under $400. Under $400 buck!
They operate just like a VCR for recording. Put your blank DVD in the recorder, hit Record, and boom, you got a DVD copy of your show.
Tivo + DVD recorder = nirvana

Here are a few pictures from our weekend trip.

Michele at the La Jolla Beach tidepools

Me next to a cairn built by Andrew Goldsworthy. There is nothing holding the cairn together, not supports, mortars, or other structure. Amazing.

Michele and I are in a hotel room in La Jolla. We arrived here around 2:30 and started wandering around. Our first stop was the Museum of Contemporary Art where we saw the Andrew Goldworthy exhibition. Great stuff. We have been fans of his work for years with prints adorning both our house and my office.
The pictures were stunning and the actual exhibits were wonderful. In one, he had taken large rocks and out them into a kiln until they just started to melt. He melted rocks! Then he let the rocks cool into the new shapes. Like baked potatoes that burst open, except they were stone.
If you go anywhere near San Diego, it’s worth a visit.
After the museum, we walked down to the tidepools and jumped around the water and spotted crabs. Someone was getting married on the cliff overlooking the water.
We wandered around the stores looking at art, clothes, souvenirs, and people sea kayaking. We snacked on chocolate and finally had Mexican food for dinner.
I turned on the computer to look up where we could see a movie. We got caught up watching the Ducks in the Stanley Cup and decided we weren’t going to see a movie.
Later.