Helpful URL

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)

cory: http://www.tamponcrafts.com/toupee.html

crw: think i'll pass.

Welcome!

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)

I, for one, welcome our new 0.7.3 overlords.  Where does one find a change log?  Mm?

Blast from the Past

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)

(or, Missing NY on a hot, muggy kin-yoobi)

It's been a while since I've perused my old journal, but I had cause to today and came across this.  I haven't been to NYC since I left it in 2003 and today I'm pining for one of those breezy autumn days in the city.

I've been feeling very conflicted about a lot of things lately, almost to the point of nihilism.  Contributing to that in no small way has been my purchase of the Criterion Collection version of Mike Leigh's Naked.  It had been a few years since I'd last seen it, but it really stuck with me.  The liner notes had a couple of really good critical essays on the work.  One by Amy Taudin shed some light on the inclusion of the Jeremy character - who until then I thought was extraneous.  She sees him as a way to contrast Johnny's playful abuse with Jeremy's actual deviance.  It makes sense, but doesn't make it any easier to watch.

If you dislike hostility, hatred, emotional and physical abuse, and characters with a penchant for mindfucking each other in long dialogues - skip this one.

Vox update

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)

Very cool.  I'm still playing but the Flickr-integration made me smile.  I just downloaded Flock and Vox didn't seem supported, would like to see that in 0.8.  Would also be nice to have digg/del.icio.us support.  The new Compose page was a bit of a shock, but I'm getting used to it.  It feels a bit more... solid.

Flickr/Photobucket candy to build on qotd success - show users a random image from their flickr/photobucket accounts and ask them to tell the story behind it.

Just found the auto-complete on tags.  Nice.

Quick Updates

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)

Trip to Vancouver was pushed back, Reno was cancelled altogether.  Tish and I saw The Omen on 6/6/6.  Mona came to visit from Arkansas and we did fun touristy things.  There are pictures.  Tish and Christine took me to The Hemlock on punk rock slideshow night and I felt ridiculously out of place... but it was good to get out like normal people should.

I've decided to try at least one post a day in Japanese - mostly just saying what day it is, so I can remember all the different numbering systems and keep up on my other vocabulary.

I've been behind the curve on digg and youtube, but I've got accounts at both places now.  I've also been exploring google spreadsheets and the google/gmail firefox sync extension.

I haven't had much time to work on ninjai, but I noticed that there's a public repository for Data::ObjectDriver, so I plan to port from CDBI asap.  Hooray!

Recent temptations successfully resisted: DS Lite, black Macbook, dual-boot Vista on work ThinkPad, staying out late at The Fiery Furnaces tonight and potentially missing an early day of work tomorrow in Walnut Creek.

Practice makes perfect

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)

Irrashaimase, Boynton-san!

きょうは　ろくーがつ　じゅうごーにち　もくーようび　です！

My Geanealogy

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)

William Whipple, Jr.

My, how far the apple falls from the tree.

Images in Comments

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)

I just discovered that I can't post images in comments on Vox.  That's sad, I had a real snarky comment-image in mind and I can't post it.  Blast!

Actually, it would be cool to be able to access stuff from my library while posting a comment.  Someone must've already thought about that, right?

The most embarrassing CD I own...

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)

It's got to be that one Andreas Dorau album where he's in drag on the album cover.  German techno at its best/worst.  I was turned on to his stuff by a friend of mine in college and it's graced my collection ever since.

CoLinux Lazyweb

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)

Dear Lazyweb,

Microsoft is out to thwart me.  For weeks now I've been using CoLinux (0.6.3/FC1 upgraded to 3) on the ThinkPad that's been issued to me by the company I'm consulting for.  Unbeknownst to me, Windows silently installed an update that ate my TAP32 driver.  The CoLinux wiki says that the TAP32 driver should act as a bridge between your connection to the Internet and your CoLinux installation via Windows Connection Sharing.

It's worked for a while, and it still works.  Sort of.  What's changed is that my TAP32 adapter has disappeared from the list of LAN connections and I'm not longer able to switch Connection Sharing sources between my ethernet and wireless adapters.  Presently, it's stuck being shared via my wireless adapter.  What's weirder is that the TAP32 driver shows up in ipconfig.

Now you see it...

Now you don't...

Has this happened to anyone else?  How can I get my TAP32 driver back so I can choose which network connection gets shared to my CoLinux installation?  Help!

What song makes you happy?

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)

"Fabulous Day" by The Essex Green.

There's something about this song that perks me up.  It's really the only song that comes to mind where no matter what context I hear it in, it makes me happy.  It's by no means one of my favorite songs - a lot of those have memories attached that leave me feeling bittersweet or forlorn.  This is just a throwaway song of goodness.

Vox Invites

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)

So I have unlimited Vox starter accounts to give away.  The invite page doesn't specifically state that once someone has a starter account they'll be able to upgrade to a full account later.  Common sense says they will, of course.  But I thought it might be nice to include some text that makes it explicit.

Hello, World

(originally posted at crw.vox.com)

Wow.  I must say, I'm very impressed with Vox.  It works just like hosted blogging software should.  It's pretty snappy.  It's got a cool name (curious who gets credit for it).  The only downside to it is that I think it will end up poaching me and most of my friends from LJ and MySpace.  We'll have to re-establish all our friendships, etc.  That's a bit of a pain, but in the end it'll be worth it.

I told ydnar that I think the vox main page should have a flash animation with Mean saying "vox... vox... vox..." through a vocoder.  That would be keen.

Congrats to Team Vox!

Welcome to SF, LJ!

(originally posted at crw.livejournal.com)

Hooray! Successful move - I'm glad it went so smoothly!

Wisdom from Mark

(originally posted at crw.livejournal.com)

"Trackback spam is the fifth horse of the apocalypse."

Manitoba Caribou

(originally posted at crw.livejournal.com)

Living so close to your office can be a terrible thing if you really love what you do. You tend to push yourself beyond your limits and end up having to walk home completely mentally and physically drained The plus side to this is that you're never satisfied with just any random soundtrack - you need something perfect and inspiring.

Tonight it was "People Eating Fruit" by Manitoba.

I'd heard of Manitoba from a friend of a friend named Timmy Jones. At that point, the only Manitoba release was "Start Breaking My Heart" - which isn't nearly as emo as its sounds, honest. It was a pretty good freshman release, but I didn't pay all that much attention to it at the time. Some time in the future I met someone interesting and we spent some time together. We happened to be sharing some lychee when "People Eating Fruit" came on my random playlist. I knew I'd heard it before, but couldn't remember where. When I saw the name of the song, it was one of those crystal-clear moments and I knew it would become one of my favorites. And so it has.

So that was my soundtrack for the walk home tonight.

When I got home I decided to check the artist out. I knew he was a 20-something solo artist with wildly varying interests and stylistic influences. What I did not know what that he'd released another LP called "The Milk of Human Kindness" under the name Caribou and had released his earlier two LP's under the same moniker on iTunes as well.

So that's your homework for tonight, darlings, go to iTunes and search for Caribou. Listen to "People Eating Fruit" and jump around to his other songs to hear his amazing diversity. Proselytize!

Catching up

(originally posted at crw.livejournal.com)

The last week I've been pretty nocturnal. I'm trying to right myself, but just end up feeling like a zombie. Today's my first day back in the office. My bonsai is still alive, maybe Garth took care of it.

I've been added to lj_core, which seems to have instantly doubled the length of my friends page.

So many interesting things going on right now, hard to know which to focus on. Maybe I'll be able to prioritize and find a balance once I've had some sleep.

Perfection

(originally posted at crw.livejournal.com, friends-only)

I just had the perfect walk home from work. The air was stark and vibrant and felt good in my lungs and on my skin. My iPod shuffle served me up a bunch of interesting music, but nothing that seemed to fit my mood. That is, of course, until I got to the courtyard of my apartment complex. To my favorite tree, the one with the fragrant blossoms.

"These Days" by Nico...

I walk past it every day on my way home from work, pause, and stretch up on my tiptoes to inhale its scent. I don't do this in the mornings on my way in, because mornings lack the comfort and security of surrounding darkness.

(a reminder to myself, six months from now, of thoughts from this evening: "inverse")

Detachment

(originally posted at crw.livejournal.com)

I didn't vote today.

It's not that I'm a bad person. In fact, I think it's to my credit that I didn't vote. The painful truth is that I simply don't pay enough attention to the day-to-day issues. I don't know about propositions or politicians or any of it. Nor do I really care to, I think. That part may be a little sad. But when faced with making a bad decision or no decision at all... it's an easy choice.

So I read on Google News that Texas passed a constitutional ban on gay marriage, or something. That's interesting. And then I read from a very forlorn xb95 that San Francisco is outlawing personal firearms, or something. That's interesting.

Really though, I don't care. I'm far too self-involved/self-centered/selfish to really care. My main concerns today have been my work and how much data I can move while still paying attention to my engineering duties, whether I'll be able to find some time to go home and read or play a video game, and whether the girl I've been interested in is for real or whether she's just into playing mind games. And that's it. Life's just not all that complicated for me. It's simple, I enjoy it, and I think that's all anyone can ask for in life.

Front Row (& rambling life update)

(originally posted at crw.livejournal.com, friends-only)

I've been trying to reset my sleep schedule, so in theory I should be asleep right now. Instead, I'm psyched that I got Front Row to work on my powerbook. Media Centers are fun when they're not from Microsoft or Sony.

I'd like to get it onto my 2nd gen iMac, because the only apps that box ever runs are iTunes, DVD Player, VLC, and SNES9X - but alas, it's still running Panther Server. What was I thinking? Maybe this weekend I'll run some cat5 into my room or temporarily drag the iMac into the living room to get Tiger client onto it.

Straddling between engineering and ops has been interesting. In theory I should be doing ops full-time, but I'm finding it hard to let go of the project I'd been working on - it's just too interesting, too fun, and far too grandiose not to want to pay attention to it. This has resulted in a shifting of my previous work/play balance to one of mostly work - but when you love your work...

Perhaps the oddest part of it all is that within the last week, amidst all the craziness, I've unexpectedly stumbled upon an amazing external source of inspiration. I wonder what will come of it all...