Posts from 03/2004

Monday, March 01, 2004

This year, I managed to correctly guess eight of the twenty-four Oscar categories. That's improvement, but not quite as good as my beginner's luck first year. Instead of watching a single minute of the ceremony, I watched the movie, Matchstick Men with Nicholas Cage. Good movie, and definitely recommended.

Some people have requested a list of movies to watch that I think are good, so off the top of my head:

Mystery/Suspense/Thriller/Con Men/Twists:

    Catch Me If You Can, Confidence, Conspiracy Theory, Das Experiment, LA Confidential, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Memento, Ocean's 11, Panic Room, Phone Booth, Reservoir Dogs, Runaway Jury, A Simple Plan, Sixth Sense, Score, 2 Days in the Valley, Usual Suspects

Not Mystery/Suspense/Thriller/Con Men/Twists:

    About Schmidt, American Beauty, A Beautiful Mind, Clerks, Moulin Rouge, Scent of a Woman, Shawshank Redemption

Not Worth Your Time:

    Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Matrix II, Eye of the Beholder, Thin Red Line, What Dreams May Come, Star Wars I, Hope Floats

Did I miss any? Let me know!

Yesterday's notable search terms:

    scratch built dropships, stubborn trees are torn up, roots and all, baby llama pictures, lycomaniac, it's america what can they want with us ringo

List of Oscar Winners
How Much is Inside?
Hooker steals police van
Kerasotes' management is in the process of creating new guidelines for preventing people dressed as "evil beings" from gaining entrance to the theatre

tagged as reviews | permalink | 2 comments
day in history

Tuesday, March 02, 2004

This was the only entry in my "Design My Living Room" contest, submitted by Mike Catania:

It obviously loses because the snake pit is far too close to the venus flytrap for there not to be a daily rumble.

My house is slowly coming to order -- I've spent the weekends and a few hours each weekday cleaning, fixing, and helping with things like water heater installation. It looks like I'll be moved out of the apartment and into the house by the end of March, so I'll be moving up to Sterling at the same time as my office moves to Reston.

Yesterday's notable search terms:

    dustin oscar sword genitalia, halp halp mnr mnr hrt hrt, quotes about pepole who surprise us, chris fraker tuba

I'm in the 90th percentile
Why doesn't anyone ever notice a baby-snatcher's new baby?
Police caught issuing tickets as a contest
Pet snitching offer countered by cat food company

tagged as contests | permalink | 2 comments
day in history

Wednesday, March 03, 2004

One last entry in the Living Room contest, post-deadline, submitted by Kathy Biddick. It's actually pretty close to what I had in mind already. I may switch the couch and its end table, or put the TV diagonally in the corner where the stereo is.

My sister got accepted to vet school at Virginia Tech and is now in the Class of 2008. Congratulations! I guess buying that house out in the middle of nowhere was a good gamble.

I have nothing important to talk about today, so I will leave you with this nugget of a thread from a forum:

hypothetical poll type question - Napoleic
suppose you're walking home minding your own business and you hear something. So you look and across a parking lot you can vaguely make out some guy hitting a chick and dragging her along yelling at her, and she is crying. Do you do anything? What?

no - jck
chances are if you do do something short of going up and kicking the sh*t out of him (really f*cking stupid unless you're jamie) he's just going to take it out on the girl.

call the cops if i had a cellphone - Bob the Newt
if not id realize i cant fight and go about my business feeling powerless

I f*cking beat the sh*t out of him... - Avalanche-X
If you don't, you are a big ass pussy.

you're a true southern gentleman =] - Triped

a 300 lb southern gentleman - Napoleic

im prolly same as bob - -zX-Ravage-
call up cops, etc.

like jck pointed out, anything short of physically doing something will probably just make it worse (and you dont know if they have a weapon anyway)

i think maybe with a group of people you could maybe scare the guy off with sheer #'s, but that's about it

i'd keep walking - MERLIN
i doub't i'd even think about it. You don't know if she deserves it, and even if she doesn't, she's with a dude that beats her so whats the point in helping her and risking getting a scratch just so she can turn around and find another guy who beats her

yah but you dont necessarily know that shes with him - Napoleic
or if she is, you dont know why

what if she just lost him 50 bucks MERLIN

what if she killed his father - Bob the Newt

hahaha yeah there's a likely scenario - Redneck_Firebat

ok you just watch - Bob the Newt
i am going to get a girl to kill your father, and then you are going to spend 2 years of your life tracking her down for revenge, and then when you finally find her and throw a punch, ava and toffs friends are going to sweep in and beat the sh*t out of you, and she will escape, and then kill your uncle who took you in and cared for you after your fathers death.

how would you like that

Yesterday's notable search terms:

    lake barcroft running, maynard transfer starcraft, coniferous and decides trees

Those damn Nazi Americans
Say goodbye to Super Size
Civil War: US vs Killington
Invasion of giant crabs from Norway

tagged as contests | permalink | 3 comments
day in history

Thursday, March 04, 2004

Something about this situation rubs me the wrong way: . If you're living in a link-free environment, the news story is about an underage drunk driving death in which another student was charged with buying beer bong parts which the driver used.

Ignoring the death, which I'm not trying to argue was deserved, these charges seem to be a weak attempt to place the blame somehow to appease the living. Yes, the 18-year-old bong buyer plays a small part in responsibility for the accident and subsequent death, but it also seems like people are not willing to fault someone who has died, as if they become a saint as soon as they're gone (and not just in this specific example).

Here we have a girl who should be old enough to know right & wrong or smart & dumb. She's a member of Students Against Drunk Driving, and yet she drinks five beers out of a beer bong and drives off, seriously injuring an innocent driver on the road who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. People can argue that the bong buyer was at fault, or the beer company was at fault, or her friends were at fault for letting her drive, or peer pressure was to blame, but at the end of the day, this girl was the one who made the conscious decision to drink. Her death should not absolve her of the responsibility for her actions. The bong buyer might be the shadiest character you'd ever meet, but racking up charges against him will change nothing.

And yes, I would feel differently if the bong buyer were replaced with a drug dealer or a direct source of something illegal, but we're talking about a funnel and some tubing here. At some point, our forgotten friend, common sense, needs to take a more active role in life and law.

Thoughts? Am I a leftist commie with no value for human life? Please share.

In lighter news, I archived the site Cheney Daily: Daily Thoughts from the Most Powerful Man in the Free World for posterity. The site closed over a year ago, and I put it back together from the Internet Archive. Sadly, I'm missing the last four months of the tale, but you can read what I have here .

Yesterday's notable search terms:

    miracles in the aeneid, aeneid miracles, "miracles" "aeneid", miracles "aeneid", miracles aeneid, miracles in virgil's aeneid, miracles on aeneid, miracles aeneid bible, marge schott bonuses candy, waiting at toll booths, antigone is not pusillanimous, hippopotomonstroesquipedalian

Looks like some high school teacher just assigned Aeneid as an essay...

His pants could have been down because he wasn't feeling well.
Election Judge in Baltimore County
Teacher resigns after duct-taping boy to desk
Sam & Max Freelance Police cancelled

Sam: "I'm Sam. He's Max. We're in a race against time."
Max: "And we're barefoot."

tagged as newsday, deep thoughts | permalink | 7 comments
day in history

Friday, March 05, 2004

Today, I'm taking the day off to run some errands, buy some housal stuff, and smuggle more goods across the border to Loudoun County. It's supposed to get up to 76 degrees by the evening.

I also finally got around to doing a little shuffling in the Links section. I've put a few additions below so you don't have to click more than one time, lazy American.

Yesterday's notable search terms:

    rondo a b a c a b, who dug the money pit, tarestesia, canadian brass midi, eats beech trees, why doesn't my grandfather clock chime on the quarter hour

If you ever have to describe something as "tasteful", it really isn't.
New Link: Sling's Dojo
New Link: Tradebark
New Link: Mark Connor's Site

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day in history

Saturday, March 06, 2004

Yesterday's notable search terms:

    nikole giraldi, jonathan shachter, dog 1922 meteorite, ada kitchen double door acting, edta color indicator fish tank, illegal hunt camels, emptymicrowave popcorn bags

Buy stamps for e-mail
"That belongs to Daddy," Humphrey says the older child told him, "but Mommy put it there."
Attack of the three-headed frog

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day in history

Sunday, March 07, 2004

Today's update is a new round of kitty pictures.

Alias Season 3, Episode 14, tonight at 9 PM.

Yesterday's notable search terms:

    maryland jernegan, what the beatles prove about teenagers, because they bend, even their twigs are safe, businessman suit homeless man

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day in history

Monday, March 08, 2004

The scene is a crowded parking garage. The villains peel out in their getaway car just as Sydney and Vaughn burst out of the stairwell in pursuit. After scanning rows of tightly-packed double-parked cars, Sydney spies a good pursuit vehicle and screams to her partner, "Get the F-150!".

The camera centers on the Ford F-150 logo below the driver's side mirror before panning across its Quiet Steel frame as the spies hotwire the car and use its hemi to knock a Ford Explorer out of the way. In their (longest lasting most dependable) F-150, they pursue the villains (who are driving a Ford Mustang) through the parking garage. The villains ultimately get away, but not before ramming a Ford Focus into oncoming traffic.

After the show, fade to black with the message "Tonight's episode of Alias has been brought to you by the new F-150" over the Ford logo.

True story.

Yesterday's notable search terms:

    nuclear launch detected., fudge said the judge jazz, drum major band hace, burneal forest

Driving a Girl's Car
Chickens sell out marijuana farmer
Yes, honey, I am in the office
The Two Towers in Engrish

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day in history

Tuesday, March 09, 2004

It will be nice not to have to drive up and down Route 28 every day after the move. This concrete slab stretching forever into nowhere connects Route 7 in Sterling to Manassas and other locales in the south. It's six lanes of straight and narrow, and constantly congested even at 5 AM. There are shifty parasites with radar guns camping along the exits, as well as secret spies in unmarked cars going with the flow.

Apparently the road, with all its bottlenecks and zones with no shoulders, has had an image problem, so Fairfax County is solving the problem with blinking LED signs that say "SPEED LIMIT ENFORCED - DRIVE SAFE" and "RESPECT RED".

The truth of the matter: everyone respects red so much that traffic is constantly stopped.

Preston Grey , of Dave McGarry fame , has released a new CD with samples . See what you think.

Yesterday's notable search terms:

    primary source on francesco sforza, where did don featherstone go to college at, the urizone makes me vomit, in the morning, in the evening, at supper time, cerebralism composer

Happy Birthday Mark!

Sheriff's Web site operator sought $300,000 from county
article on Interactive Fiction
Former kidnapper crashes women's conference
So who did fry those locks?
DIY dill shoots nail into brain

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day in history

Wednesday, March 10, 2004

Yesterday was a long day. I got up at 5 and decided it was too cold to be up, so I went back to sleep until 6. Then, I worked from home until around 9 or 10 after a shower and a bagel, and drove to the office at the tail end of the rush hour. It still took four cycles to get through the light at Old Ox Road. I also signed up for phone service at the new house, and it looks like my number will start with 4444. At work I did some research into top secret sub atomic particles that emit photon beams and quantum teleport to Petropavlovsk, and then left for the house around 2. I did some sanding and some closet painting until my hands were tired, and then went home at 6. At that hour, it took me an hour to get back to Centreville, instead of the usual fifteen minutes at midafternoon. I also stopped by the Spellerbergs' house to say hi and see the new puppy, a yellow lab named Tally. When I finally reached the apartment, I played with the hungry meowing cats and watched some shows in syndication. At 9, Ben, John, Heather, Anna, and I rolled across the street to Glory Days for a later than usual dinner. Around 10:30, I came home and went to sleep.

Today's update has been written in the style of Mike Catania .

Yesterday's notable search terms:

    spark notes for something upstairs, sv.ghost - error, another word for pine sap, theme from mash, how to exterminate japanese beetles

Last weekend, I saw Van Wilder. I thought it was a little funnier than Old School. I also saw Radio, a standard emotionally manipulative feel-good movie. Cuba Gooding Jr. plays a mentally retarded man which hides his lack of acting ability.

$1 Million Bill leads to arrest
CNN always picks useful pictures to support stories
[T]he board said they were "displeased" with [university president accused of plagiarism] Judd after he acknowledged using the oscillating headlights on his state car to pull over a motorist who he believed was speeding.
Follow-up to last year's story: Girls Gone Wild is not porn

tagged as day-to-day | permalink | 2 comments
day in history

Thursday, March 11, 2004

A couple days ago, I arranged for my new phone installation online. Yesterday, I got an e-mail from Verizon asking me to call their Welcome Center. It turns out that they couldn't find any credit history for me, and the lady on the phone asked me to fax them all sorts of paperwork like employment history and driver's license.

BU: "So why exactly do I have to submit all this paperwork?"
Verizon: "Well, since we can't locate your credit history, we have to verify that you are who you say you are. We cannot provide phone service without some proof of identity."
BU: "Would an existing utilities account be sufficient if I don't want you to have all that paperwork?"
Verizon: "Yes, just provide us with the name of the company and your account number with them, and we can verify it by phone."
BU: "Okay, my current phone service is provided through Verizon. Look me up under the phone number I put down as my "old phone number"."
Verizon: "... Oh."

Yesterday's notable search terms:

    michigan law hydrants crocodiles, tanana tribe lifestyle, coprolalomaniac arachibutyrophobia

interesting article on the Command Line
Gator goes for a ride
Swedish Chef fired for cooking too well; Muppets plan strike
Teacher bets student to jump out window to prove evolution

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day in history

Friday, March 12, 2004

Every city has its own breed of annoying driver, and the D.C. metropolitan area is no exception. Someday, when I can affordably mod my car with a fake license plate that drops down over the real one and a radar absorbing (Quiet Steel) frame, I'm also going to add a pneumatic nail gun to the undercarriage. With this, I can covertly shoot nails into the tires of annoying drivers, causing them to have a safe but irritating flat tire several hours later. Such a weapon of mass deflation could be used on:

  • people in left turn lanes who stop ten yards over the line and then don't back up until oncoming traffic is about to hit them
  • lane changers who don't signal, and the subset, lane changers who immediately get back in the old lane
  • people who see the left lane going fast, so they get in it, thinking it will magically make them fast
  • people who slow down to 5mph fifty yards before the left turn lane, even though said lane is long enough to land a jet
  • people who block the box (traffic-related only)
  • officers who pull people over during rush hour, making everyone else slow down and gawk
  • people who come to a complete stop when merging onto the interstate at the Yield signs
  • people in yuppy cars with yuppy headlights (highly focused pinpoint beams that always seem like they're set to HIGH BEAMS)
  • people in yuppy cars with three or more headlights
  • people on cell phones who don't maintain the flow of traffic
  • officers who drive the speed limit in hopes of setting a good example
  • people who flick cigarettes out the window
  • people who think it's their civic duty to prevent you from going over the speed limit
  • elderly drivers who feel it's their right to drive on highways and then drive it like they're on a sightseeing safari in the Serengeti
  • solo drivers in SUVs who obviously use it to putter around rather than haul goods or transport whole field hockey teams

Got an annoying driver story to share? Let me know!

Yesterday's notable search terms:

    needed tibetan typist for the project, uri brian, debussy disliked mahler

Verdict in Alexandria fatal beating
A driver in Schenectady, New York, was arrested last month after rolling past police with a DVD titled "Chocolate Foam" playing on the passenger-side sun visor in his Mercedes-Benz.
Free Office 2003 not kosher
Wendy's sinks are so clean, employees bathe in them
Dangerous weapon gets through security screeners

tagged as lists | permalink | 1 comment
day in history

Saturday, March 13, 2004

No big update because I'm going to be down in Colonial Beach for most of the day.

Yesterday's notable search terms:

    lerky, michelle cao, zippy the turtle, gorilla:scientific name, hats novelty spam, chords september earth wind and fire, dokschitzer

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day in history

Sunday, March 14, 2004

I was up at the house again today with my dad doing some painting and installing some more overhead light fixtures. It's weird driving through a neighbourhood that is truly dark (no streetlights). All the apartment complexes I've lived in recently have giant security lampposts throughout, some smack dab up against the windows.

New Alias tonight at 9 on ABC.

Yesterday's notable search terms:

    leonardo sodomy charge, nohunters, clash of the footmen

Frozen lobsters returning to life
Bush praises man in speech on womens' rights

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day in history

Monday, March 15, 2004

We watched Once Upon a Time in Mexico last night, a tired retread of ground already covered in El Mariachi and Desperado. The only notable parts of the movie were Enrico Iglesias trying to be a badass and Johnny Depp reprising the role he had in Pirates of the Caribbean, but as a CIA agent.

Yesterday's notable search terms:

    worm beech, scriabin mystic chord, bricks in empire state building pepsi, jeered by the minor demons

Dinosaur on the run

tagged as reviews | permalink | 0 comments
day in history

Tuesday, March 16, 2004

Mocking the Busy administration and reelection campaign provides me with easy fodder for news updates. Since I'm full of strong opinions but too apathetic to do much more than go out and vote on Election Day, this can be my contribution to the world of politics.

Following last week's admission that hiring actors to portray the 9/11 firefighters in the controversial Ground Zero reelection ads was "cheaper and quicker", the latest buzz surrounds the faux news releases touting Bush's newest Medicare law . This was coupled with House Republicans using their committee websites to engage in useful discourse about John Kerry .

Meanwhile, The Bush-Cheney campaign has discontinued its poster generation tool after Bush enemies discovered they could use it nefariously to have their own slogan endorsed by Bush .

I've been watching the Daily Show in the evenings when I have the chance -- I'd forgotten how funny and on target it was. After a segment where they took a gay, a jew, a black man to see the revival of Fiddler on the Roof for a panel on anti-Semitism, they tied the gay marriage debate to the discovery of gay penguins at the zoo and referred to them as "chum-guzzling".

Yesterday's notable search terms:

    nate shafroth, water quality pohick bay potomac river virginia, how were settlers encouraged to colonize maryland, 1955 walt disney crossword puzzle, erin lawson soprano, facts (pepsi island)

Word Metadata strikes again
Mature images in Legoland
Woman meets her waterloo
The terrorist agenda of dihydrogen monoxide

tagged as newsday, politics | permalink | 0 comments
day in history

Wednesday, March 17, 2004

I think it's interesting that no major news source has really devoted much space to Michael Jackson and the ancient art of pedophilia, ever since his sister stole the show with her mammary malfunction. Family conspiracy?

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Yesterday's notable search terms:

    scrapbooking page ideas music and piano recital, popcorn microwave toxic fumes, sitcom clock secret passage, cattlebruiser maps, eaten by a lemur dog

Laid off worker wins lottery
Little girl likes little girls
Alias star recruits for the CIA, because the show is just like real life
It was unclear whether the man was seeking assistance for his injury or help in nailing down his other hand.

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day in history

Thursday, March 18, 2004

The office is picking up and moving to Reston tomorrow, so I'm going to take Friday and next Monday off to do housal things like painting and getting the new windows installed. Next weekend will be when I actually start living in the house.

Yesterday's notable search terms:

    qimble, nuke the urizone, starport origami, vinny ba ba joe conigliaro, johnny carson quotes may a camel

El Al planted gun on passenger
She didn't know she hurt someone and felt terrible about [throwing a microphone stand into a crowded audience], but she didn't feel she was guilty of a crime either.

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day in history

Friday, March 19, 2004
Saturday, March 20, 2004
Sunday, March 21, 2004
Monday, March 22, 2004
Tuesday, March 23, 2004

My four day sabbatical has drawn to a close and I'm back in the saddle ready to hunt outlaws and Injuns. The majority of my time was spent working at the house, which is why there were no decent updates to be had.

On Friday, I rewired most of the outlets on the upper floor and painted over the rich green master bathroom with several coats of white. Because the house is south-facing, the sun shines directly into the bathroom, illuminating it like a sterile alien probe facility.

After lunch when the sun had slipped to the other side of the house, I moved to the study where I put together my American Dream desk, a gargantuan five million pound gorilla made out of particle board and the ingenious self-install bits that minimize drilling. Whichever engineer invented those must be a retired millionaire by now. The desk is U-shaped with drawers, a giant cabinet, and a set of smaller overhead cabinets. It will actually be able to hold the three printers, MIDI keyboard, scanner, MIDI box, and other assorted computer goods, and it will still have a cupboard leftover for Booty storage. Desk construction took the rest of the day.

That night, Anna, Ben, Jim, Monica, and I went to Champps where we hung out with Anna's people from work, Tina and Randy, who ended up being from the same high school as Monica, and were also friends with Joe and Matt, band people from Tech. Matt of course is currently married to Paige who was a music major at Tech that I knew. It was like the Six Degrees of Separation from Kevin Bacon, except without the six, the bacon, or the Kevin.

Saturday's big project was painting the hall bathroom, and Sunday was a little bit of everything, including watching Alias. On Monday, the three guys from Variety Windows came out to tear out my fourteen motel windows and replace them with high-quality vinyl windows. They got them all in by six in the evening. The cable guy also came out to find that every cable on the property had been cut at some point in the past. He had to drill two new ports into the house and run a cable to the back box (which will require a crew to bury the line in the back yard sometime next month).

Now I'm at work in the new building at Two Reston Overlook waiting for my network connectivity to get set back up, and wasting time by writing this update. As an update, I didn't get internet access all day, and couldn't post this until I got home.

Yesterday's notable search terms:

    how did senator conkling die, christy kull nc, how do you exterminate japanese beetles, how to wall in lost temple with terran, winter xylem spruce, zippy fan club

tagged as day-to-day | permalink | 1 comment
day in history

Wednesday, March 24, 2004

The new Reston office is not a bad space. I'm sharing an office with high-school-Jack and we have a window facing east overlooking a small grassy courtyard fertilized with copious goose poop. The Northrop Grumman building looms on the other side of the courtyard (about four stories higher), but our window is close enough to the corner to have a view of the sunrise over Reston (until it eclipses behind NGIT).

The offices are slightly smaller than Dulles and the corridors are like a rat's warren, but there's still not a cubicle in sight. As an added bonus, going to the restroom from my office is a straight shot, unlike the Yellow Brick Road spiral I had to traverse in the old building. The restroom is much more industrial feeling and has automatic sensors on everything. Flushing the toilet could suck a small child or a puppy out to sea in about 0.2 seconds, so you need to make sure your toilet paper has no hanging chad before you flush or tragedy could strike.

The network is still a little flaky -- I've been downloading a JDK for a project since I got in this morning and it's going at a healthy 1.3KB/sec. Only ten hours left...

Yesterday's notable search terms:

    operating a toll plaza, percussion cadence "word up", sailor moon poring in bed, hypnotism laws in san diego, maryville high school graduate 1994, hold on - kristy mcnichol, hindemith chord tension, fun fog facts

Delta loses Grandpa
Customer subdues robber with a sledgehammer
Oregon county bans all marriage

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day in history

Thursday, March 25, 2004

Last night I watched Dirty Pretty Things, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor as a Nigerian immigrant and Audrey Tautou as not Amélie. It's a decent thriller, and was nominated for an Original Screenplay Oscar this year.

I've added a couple new pictures of my new office to the Uri! Pictures and a couple house pictures (including one of the American Dream desk) to the House Pictures.

Yesterday's notable search terms:

    pentachlorophenol year it was discovered, michigan tenth grade biology book, the urizone has you, ada holland

"Backyard Wrestling Babes" was not a high-class venture
Attacker tells blind man, "Watch where you're going"
Scottish man should have done it in Texas
Zoning puts preschoolers by adult bookstore
Herb Wesson and the Balls of Steel

tagged as reviews | permalink | 3 comments
day in history

Friday, March 26, 2004

We saw Cold Creek Manor last night. In length, it was the Bad Boys II of suspense movies, and in suspense, it was the Adventures of Milo and Otis. The purported ghost story spends an hour and half setting back story and building tension, then squanders the last half hour on a paint-by-numbers ending with no twists, no ghosts, and several plot holes. The climactic battle is a hand to hand fight between a guy with a hammer and a guy with a stepladder. Skip it.

I finished reading Debugging: The 9 Indispensable Rules for Finding Even the Most Elusive Software and Hardware Problems by David Agans. It's a brief, easy-to-read book that doesn't bring much new information to the table, but helps codify best practices you might forget in the heat of debugging. The style of the book is quite conversational and has many real-life anecdotes to support the text. It goes a little overboard in the "my tech book must be funny to sell" department, but the humour is easier to take here than in the Guerilla Programming book I mentioned a few months back.

Also on my "in-progress" book list are a study book for the Java 2 Developer's Certification Exam, and To Ride Hell's Chasm, Janny Wurts' latest standalone novel.

Yesterday's notable search terms:

    ghostly possession, the urizone has left the internet, exercises for voice modulation, florence nightingale carried owl

Bionic hiker's goal thwarted by previous bionic hiker
Cat will hear twice the mice
Richard Simmons slaps ultimate cage fighter
Something fishy about the Norwegian ninja

tagged as reviews | permalink | 0 comments
day in history

Saturday, March 27, 2004

Today is moving day, so there will probably not be any new updates until I'm reconnected to the Internet at the house. Have a good weekend! Watch Alias tomorrow and help maintain its #2 ranking in the 18-35 demographic!

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day in history

Monday, March 29, 2004

I'm fully moved into the new house now, after a four-hour stint of Rte 28 trips on Saturday through the light but insistent pitter patter of rain.

My seven mile commute took ten minutes today, and the sun was up when I left the house.

I hope to get Internet up and running at home in the next couple days.

Yesterday's notable search terms:

    lycomaniac, how do you write a good battle for a story, lightbulb loved a cellar wall, wainscoat baseboard, acid rain lab bromothymol blue

'Kills <x> Dead' not always a good housecleaning slogan
Big and small stars
Obscene caller has unlisted number
Canadian moonshine

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day in history

Tuesday, March 30, 2004

I spent yesterday afternoon cleaning, scrubbing, and vacuuming the apartment for a check-out inspection today. The Elms at Centreville was definitely a good place to live, and I would heartily recommend it to anyone looking for a home. The staff is always helpful and maintenance is super speedy and rarely needed. The only downside to the place is that the walkways outside doors drip mightily even in the smallest rain shower, so you always get wet if you don't have an umbrella. On the upside, you may get a discount if you say I referred you. (Or maybe I get the discount).

Mr. Clean Magic Erasers really do work on wall smudges and pencil marks, but they disintegrate like nobody's business. I got a pack of 8 for six bucks and used up five just scrubbing the apartment.

Tonight, the plan is to set up the Home Network (no shopping allowed), finish painting a bathroom, and install some more blinds.

Yesterday's notable search terms:

    jennie geisner, murders and historical information about steamboat springs colorado, signatures that start with e's, dave day virginia tech, dirty littered overgrown gardens

We all have a need to decorate Mother Nature because it belongs to all us.
Akron defends its title as the happeningest town in the USA
Dannequin returns

tagged as day-to-day | permalink | 4 comments
day in history

Wednesday, March 31, 2004

One more month is down for the count. A year ago today, Booty looked like the picture on your left and Geraldo Rivera was ejected from Iraq for drawing in the sand.

Yesterday evening, I set up an internal network at the house so people can access the Internet from either computer, and then finished painting the downstairs bathroom. So far, everything's gone off without a hitch. Tonight, I'll be painting the downstairs bedroom so a friend from work whose Ashburn townhouse isn't quite finished can move in for a couple months. I still haven't finished unpacking all the crap in the basement, but most of the necessities have been bought or installed now. I guess my next major purchases will be a propane grill and a lawn mower.

Poll: should I keep the birdbath with the cherub and his dog that's sitting in the front yard?

Yesterday's notable search terms:

    chester arthur god, jennie geisner, monaco fun facts, how do i transpose c into bb

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