Friday, February 27, 2004

Garden Gnome?

Pablo

Pablo's website address

What is it? have you been keeping it up? Can't wait to afford to buy one!
The Yo-Fish



Rodeo Daze


the big time

Wow, Communication Arts used one of Anthony's illustrations on the call for entry for their illustration annual. his is the one in the middle.

they wanted to use cupidsandcowboys.com for this year's interactive annual, but then they realized it was poop.

we should start calling mr. mercado 'cavePaul'.

Thursday, February 26, 2004

The Darkness...

We are on night 3 of "The Great San Jacinto #5 Blackout" here in Houston. So far it has been fun bumping into things and stubbing my toes on the furniture.

Also, I am just now updating from home because I found an outlet in the hallway and was able to run a bunch of extension chords down into adolphs apartment and into the kitchen .... and from there plug in the aiport, the cable-modem and my ibook ....

ralphdontrun.net

Nice politi-flash: ralphdontrun.net

Wednesday, February 25, 2004

Tickets?

Do you think it would be uncouth to dress up in costume like I did for the matrix and star wars?

Maybe I can just wear my jedi costume....it sorta looks like Jesus dress doesnt it?

A Republican Nader?

A Republican Nader? - The third-party candidate Democrats want and need. By Timothy Noah:

"Political scientists argue about whether Ross Perot's 19 percent of 1992's popular vote put Bill Clinton in the White House�?it hinges on whether you think Perot voters would have otherwise voted Democratic, Republican, or not at all�?but Chatterbox, who covered that race for the Wall Street Journal, always felt at the gut level that Perot's appeal was more powerful to potential supporters of George H.W. Bush. Exit polls contradict Chatterbox's gut; they showed Perot voters splitting their preferences fairly equally between Clinton and Bush. But a survey by Clinton pollster Stanley Greenberg found that Perot voters had a 'largely Republican voting history.' The 2000 election, of course, was so absurdly close that just about anything--including Ralph Nader's 3 percent of the popular vote, which otherwise would probably have gone to Al Gore--can be called a determining factor."

As a two time Perot voter I've always wondered how he stacked up against Nader in 2000. Interestingly, Slate quotes the same "pollster" as Nader.

Infoplease.com sez: "He garnered 19% of the popular vote in '92, and 8% in '96, testimony to voters' disillusionment with the traditional two-party system."

Nader for President - www.voteNader.org -

Why Ralph?:

According to the exit polls conducted by Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg, fully 25% of his votes came from Republicans, 38% from Democrats, and the remainder from people who would not have voted. No other American leader can be credited with such broad appeal across the divides of our polarized nation.

Hmmmm, given Nader's relatively slim plurality, it would seems unfair to characterize his appeal as broad; it would seem more like "narrow appeal across the divides . . . ."

Mac 911 Weblog: It's the Standard, Stupid

Mac 911 Weblog: It's the Standard, Stupid:

"The same people who buy inexpensive players are also purchasing music online from sources other than the iTunes Music Store and thereby amassing collections of music that are incompatible with the iPod. What are the odds that these people will become iPod owners if their music collections won’t play on it?"
Feel free to enter your single digit answer here."

I think that the economic model the assertion is made on is flawed in that the larger part of most people's digital music collections is composed of DRM-free MP3 files encoded from their libraries of compact disks. In the future this may or may not change. The early adopters or the second wave of adopters have certainly taken to music downloads, but there still exist many technical hurdles before non-computer savvy people are able to download music and feel comfortable doing it. The other half of the Apple's loss leader in the iTunes Music Store is the iTunes music management software, which like the music download service is the industry leader both in sales and design. More than any other system, it stands a chance of enabling non-technical people to enjoy how their personal computer can enhance their audio experience.

Nothing new to AOE plyas

How Catapults Married Sciences With Politics: "In wars of antiquity, no weapon struck greater terror than the catapult. It was the heavy artillery of that day, the sturdy springboard that shot menacing payloads over fortress walls and into enemy camps �? flaming missiles, diseased corpses, lethal arrows and stony projectiles."

Editorial Observer: I Will Be the Candidate in Blue, Third From the Left . . .

Editorial Observer: I Will Be the Candidate in Blue, Third From the Left . . .: "What we have here, then, is a candidate who is not serious, who cannot afford to be serious, but whose career depends on frightening people who know he's not serious into pretending they think he is. Political campaigns aren't generally a venue for unvarnished truth-telling, but this setup can't be good for anybody � except, of course, Mr. Sharpton."

Happy Ash Wednesday




Does anyone have a ticket yet?

Monday, February 23, 2004

Advice

Thanks for the advice, everyone!! I have OS version 10.2 -- I think I will try Adolph's idea of burning through the Finder first and, if that doesn't work, I'll look into upgrading my system or getting the Burnz software.



The program was created in Power Point and only has photos and text, no movies.



The way I burned the CD was just by dragging the files onto the CD icon and then dragging the CD icon to the black and yellow burn icon at the bottom of the screen (where the trash usually is) ...

The way the world works

This is a pretty interesting article on "How Democrat fund-raiser scored Dean knockout."

Working Mom

Baby was asleep this morning, slumbering and dreaming away the wee hours of the morn while Daddy showered and dressed and then Mommy following suit. Daddy makes coffee, baby still sleeps, pink pudgy lips drooping open towards the bed where he rests his fat cheek, he doesn't need a pillow. Mommy holds baby close, humming and singing his special baby song. Baby's fingers spread like wings and then curl like eyelashes to rest again on the warm bed. Otherwise he doesn't stir. In the kitchen, life bubbles in the coffee maker, Daddy zooms in and out with last minute gatherings. Lunch is already packed for the week, cooked up late last night by Mommy. Papas con Huevos and a serving of oatmeal for breakfast. Chicken, squash and rice for lunch, Sweet Rice Atole and diced fruit for desert. Baby still slumbers. Mommy quickly dresses, then softly changes baby's diaper, wet with last night's feedings. Quietly and carefully Mommy changes baby out of his PJs and into his jeans and soccer shirt. Socks and shoes follow.

Baby doesn't wake, he stretches a little, then drops off into dreamland once more.

Finally, in Daddy's arms and near the door, baby's eyes open slowly, first one, then the other, flutter into awakefulness. He smiles.

We open the door and baby looks out in to the still slumbering world.

The dew is still in the air.

Easy Solution

State of the Art solution Amber.



PPT Frustrations


These are exactly the sorts of things i hear from doctors that come to the institution with mac burned cds every now and then. Most of the time, though, it's a mistake they made rather than a problem with the disk.

Can't really say much without being there, really. What were the laptops running? What kind of mac do you have? How old is your version of ppt?

Lots of questions....few answers, sorry.

the burn's the thing.

hello Amber.

What OS are you running on your mac? One of the early versions of 10? if so that is most likely the problem. We had the exact same problem, which was not specific to PowerPoint, when we first upgraded. it seems that the original burning software made discs that did not play nice with Windows, most notably Windows 98.

Some options to consider : 1. upgrade your OS, or, 2. pick up a copy of the Burnz software adolph mentioned. Either of those shoudl do the trick and provide hours of PowerPointing Pleasure.

PowerPoint and the Mac

Amber,
(1.) Was the presentation originally made in PowerPoint, or was it made in something else, like Keynote? (2.) Does the PowerPoint contain anything other than pictures (i.e. movies)? (3.) How did you burn the CD? I've noticed that if you make a disk image first and then burn, then Win98 computers can't see the disk, but if you burn though the Finder, then it works fine. I've been using Burnz to make disks now though, because it offers increased compatibility options. Burnz is free for the first 10 disks and $12.50 for use thereafter. (4.) If you can get to the presentation computer ahead of time, make a really simple PowerPoint, burn it to disk and see if you can get it to run.

Sunday, February 22, 2004

Power Point Frustrations

So I went to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens today to give a 6-hour comprehensive presentation all about tropical plants -- and then, it happened -- that nightmare event that so far I had only dreamed about and feared -- my power point files didn't open!! I had saved the slide shows as .ppt files on my Apple computer and then burned them onto a disc -- when I then tried to open them on the garden's IBM lap-tops, the CD-ROM icon showed up, along with the file folder called "Presentations," but when I clicked on the file folder to get to the files, a message came up saying "Folder is empty" ... so I tried opening Power Point and then opening the files from within the program and got the message "Unable to access files ..."



I thought I had made a mistake in burning the CD ... but when I got home, I was able to open the disc and open the files on my computer --- does anyone know what went wrong??? Please help!!

Morning Notes


I'm working hard filling up the new 160 gig hard drive to make sure it doesn't have any bad spots, unlike the last one. It is hard to fill up that much space!
Nader, one the one hand it is cynical to say, "Nader, don't run because you will gurantee the the current president is the next president," on the other hand you have to wonder if Nader doesn't like being the opposition so much that he would like to see the ruin of us all so he can keep on saying "I've been telling you so!" I was thinking about this last week and wondering, "did the Greens have a vote at some point to select Nader as their presidential candidate?" Was it just decided in some smoke filled room? (You know the kind of smoke.) Is Nader ver.2 (Now without bothering with this Green Party stuff) just a Lyndon La Rouche perennial candidate without a hope, just there to get 15 minutes every 4 years? Whatever happened too all that "building the Green Party" stuff that had to do with electing local Green Party candidates? I haven't heard of Nader stopping by to stump for any around here.
In the larger picture, his candidacy can be seen as a criticism of main-line Democratic Party corporate corruption, I guess. But if most main-line Democratic candidates are now saying something about trade agreements that benefit corporations more than citizens, why wouldn't you get gung-ho and get a place at the table?
RFID coupled with GPS, wireless networking and an Amazon.com style search and find system would be the most fantastic thing for libraries and bookstores. Imagine a library where nothing was shelved in order, only the order in which it came in or was reshuffled. Maybe little bookshelf crawling robots to fetch far-away titles too. It would be like those research libraries where librarians fetch the stuff for you, you only have access to the card catalogue and wait at a study carol and turn in a little card with what you want and then they fetch it. I'm not certain if that would make for a quality retail experience though...

Friday, February 20, 2004

Nader Says He'll Run as Independent for U.S. Presidency



also, this is nuts

also, I think RFID tags should be used in books in Libraries and Bookstores so that missing and incorrectly shelved books can be located instantly.



Cat killed a birdie.

Last night as Todd and I were smoking on the terrace were witnessed MR. Smitty participate in the circle of life, a departure from his normal activies of sleeping and tormenting the Bodie.

After a couple of squawks Smitty brought his little gift to the front door.





Prattle-dee-doo-dah

Well.

as is my only commentary, no sparkling blurbs on technical gazidtry, and reformatting systems to realign perspectives on geo political party assertions.



To comment on Ambers comments. I am frustrated by the work situation. mostly out of my own inability to grab it by the throat and take a stand on self created ground. I still am schleping to the check of corporate bohemoths to spend my time and hard fought creativity on the production of useless crap. creating yet another strategy to extract the cash from the pockets of the people. Hey who wants a pair of fucking shoes? How about some cool? we got that over here. Not convinced? well if you start to see through that bullet proof ad campaign, I'll just come up with graphic information that's composed on an abstract emotional level to disorient your scepticism. Yes this is a bit acidic. Yes I do feel the slave. Yes I am only as much a slave as I let myself be.



But once again, I leave "work" and make my way through a conglomeration of other peoples intentions and directions stacked on each other to build this coral of commerce and wind my way walking through street of neighbors that do not speak to each other. What happened to a friend in my path smiling? Finally I arrive at a door.



I open this door and inside is something wholly and completely different to me as nothing I have ever known. I am once again a simple part of things true and real and simple. Light comes from my hand switching on that light and lighting that candle and kissing that cheek and wipping that tear and hearing that laughter. sitting to a table with these three girls who wait each day for me to come home. presenting me with a day full of difference. Emotional expression that has no place in that place that I spend so many heart beats and breaths. But in this house I know why I do that fighting and striving for those monies. I am still so much in awe of how much I do not know. How much one can never know. How I shall stand, and learn as best I can to do so in a manner with truth. And build this family with my wife and my children.



fuck yeah.

Hard Drive and a USB/FW Hub

I love tracking things that are being delivered to me.

Thursday, February 19, 2004

SD-10: Fun with Perspective



So here is another 'waiting for Carol to pick me up' shot. Here, I shot the new research bldg from across the street around 4:50 P.M. today. I'm kinda new at this fixing perspective thing, so bear with me as i struggle through it. You'll notice the second bldg looks a little keystoned at the bottom right, not to mention the distortion in the line of windows lodged in that pink 'capital' limestone; i should have pulled out the bottom anchor a little more to fix this...







Writing

You know, I forgot about how I still write what a lot of people read. I guess it is a mark of something when you're doing something and don't really realize exactly what you are doing so much as just doing it. I used to write a column every week in the university paper, then that zine we did and I thought that I had stopped. In reality, I just found another publication, I send out over 12,000 emails every couple of weeks for people to read. In the last one, there were over 6,000 unique opens and 12,000 total opens. The difference between the two numbers comes from people opening it up more than once or forwarding it on to other people who open it up.



Of course, I'm not just writing whatever comes into my head, or following whatever spurious leads disgruntled professors or staff feed me. Now a days it is a fight for focus and relevance, trying to take all the stuff that the place I works for wants to communicate and formulate it so that people read it. It is a different challenge, and something I forgot I was doing until just now.

Hydra?


Stay at Home Parents

In our family, Anthony will be the Mr. Mom, while I go out every day to earn a living ...

of course, he earns his living from home already .. but having a Junior/Juniorette to

look after will add a whole new dimension to his work day -- I wonder just how much

work he will actually be able to do between tending to baby ... and, of course, like

Carol and every other mom who has to leave her child, I'm sure I will also feel those

parting pangs and envy my man for having so much bonding time ... and he will maybe

envy me for having the freedom to walk out the door every day at 7 a.m. ... life is so

complicated ... it's interesting reading that so many of us are experiencing these

things at around the same time.



I like Carol and Killy's solution of facing life's obstacles with a song ...



Colin, maybe what defines you as a man is not so much the day to day grind of

earning The Living but the gradual creation of something larger: life and dreams

and song and the hope and love and promise you see reflected in your children's

eyes when they look at you, the one who makes it all possible.



Life viewed in the near may look like muddled stains on the floor, but viewed over

months or years it becomes a multi-colored landscape of breathtaking complexity

and richly layered meanings, of unanticipated turns and forks in the road, of valleys

that go on and on, only to be capped by glorious peaks, and of interconnected threads

that lead you to become the person you were always meant to be.



Things never change. Then, unexpectedly, they do.

NowNext!

Imagine using this with SubEthaEdit!
Check This Out

Pasqualina Azzarello is an artist I befriended down in Guanajuato years ago. She is a spectacular kind of person and has hands that do the amazing color thing. Check out her paintings at The Little Red Studio







Wednesday, February 18, 2004

Version Cue

Paul and I are already using a version assistive technology called CVS, or Concurrent Version Control. I haven't spent enough time learning about VersionCue, but it strikes me as a similar technology with Adobe's products in mind. Paul and I use CVS to make sure we don't step on each other's work.



CVS does a number of handy things: 1. It acts as a central repository for our collective work. 2. It keeps a history of the versions of each file in the collective work. 3. If Paul and I are editing the same file at different places, it merges the two different changes. 4. If Paul and I modify the same portion of the same file in incompatible ways, it lets us know that we have a conflict that we need to work out.



I don't plan to every work on a web project without it, because it keeps you safe with very little overhead. That said, it is a bit of a pain to set up if you aren't familiar with it and the command line.



Likewise, I am looking forward to using VersionCue. I am a little wary of it as it looks like a pretty proprietary solution. What if it goes the way of that mysterious "Publish and Subscribe. . ." or OpenDoc technology in Mac OS 7? Still I think the key sentence is:

Say good-bye to awkward file names like "brochure_1," "brochure_2," or even "brochure_final_final.psd."


Please, please Adobe, deliver us from nonversioning filesystem evil!
Chuang Tze's Brother

The brother of Chuang Tze fell asleep in the Cullen Sculpture Garden and had a lovely, dream. He awoke and less famously asked himself "Am I a well built, shamlessly naked Greek man dreaming that I am a statue, or am I a statue dreaming that I am a well built, shamelessy naked Greek man?"

Also, check out this site in spanish
or german



















Killy

Word brother, I hear what your saying about the manlihood of earning the income. The fucking shit is, I can earn a living but does that compose the whole of me as a man. sometimes it seems like the only thing that defines me as male or man is this function. All the functions of attracting the female and reproducing have been taken care of, I have proved my potency, so now all that seems to remain is that of being an earner. It's fucked up, especially when there are more then your own thoughts and feelings involved. Kids take all situations and add such dimension.

NextNow!

The next generation of Apple Unpack porn, the unpacking video:some guy video reviews the iPod mini

By the way.....


Here's the original shot...

SD-10: Recent Work - Texas Medical Center


This is the Heart Hospital next door to MD Anderson on Bates St. & Bertner. I took this shot at around 6: 30 or so. I think this is that 'sweet spot' that Mark and Taggart so eagarly await in the wee hours of the morning and evening. I was waiting for my wife to arrive and saw the reflectance of the sky and flourescent lighting in the hospita - they were nearly identical. I whipped out the SD-10, braced myself against a pole to minimize shake for such a dark shot and snapped it.

Virtua Spud


Too bad you couldn't just code a delicious potato.

Po-Tay-Toes

Well I tried to bake a couple of potatoes last night. I had honestly never baked a potato before so I did a search on Google for instructions.

I had thought to prepare two- one for Adolph and one for me. But Adolph had to stay at the office late, which turned out to be good, because one of the potatoes suffered from oven sickness.
The other potato turned out ok, and I enjoyed it with a heavy serving of real cow butter, sour-cream, two kinds of grated cheese, salt and, of course, pepper.

The 2nd Night (misery!) and and the 3rd Morning


On a totally normal night with no interruptions we got in the door at just before 7:00 P.M. Adolfo had refused to nap yesterday. He was exhausted, but he was also sooooo angry at carol (both of us, really), but he also wanted to BE with his mama so badly. He was crying and whining hard the whole time. We figured he was just exhausted since he hadn't napped, so carol took him to bed.

He fell asleep, but then woke up crying. then, he fell asleep again; then, woke up crying....

(repeat till 11:30)

Carol was pretty frustrated. She never really had dinner = angry/frustrated wife.

@ 11:30 the baby fully woke up. He was endlessly crying. Nothing would settle him. We thought maybe he was sick in some way or bothered by a diaper rash...nuthin'...no rubbing ears, no extraordinary gas, no red rash on the behind, nuthin'...

He got down off the bed and in the lamplight, threw a tantrum as never before. Carol and i were stunned. All we could do was watch him. He shook his head as he stood against the bed and hit the side of the bed with his little fists. Then, he threw himself down on the floor and started kicking. He got up and did it again....

After letting this go on for about a minute, i tried to pick him up. He would have none of me. Carol picked him up and he calmed down a bit. We tried to re-assure him, love him, but it just didn't matter what we did.

Finally, we did the only thing we could do....we sang.

We sang, 'Down by the Bay' and 'The Rock Candy Mountain' quietly, and with that ... he slept, but restlessly. Mommy had to bear the full brunt of his restlessness throughout the night. Poor Carol. I should get her another massage.

At one point in the evening i had consulted 'the book' (What to Expect the First Year) about Separation Anxiety. Apparently, this is a pretty common occurance for mtoher's who are full time workers. The child is away from her all day and at night sees sleeping as another 'loss' of the mother's attention and time, so he fights it.

This is hard to bear as much as a reality as it is. It is at these times that i berate myself especially hard for not being the 'breadwinner' of my little family. Inevitably I question my 'manlihood' (whatever that is). Why can't a let my wife be home with my son? What more can i do?



Tuesday, February 17, 2004

CS Suite


We've installed the CS suite here at work. I'm rolling through the tutorials that were included in the software. My boss is also ordering about 48 hours worth of CD tutorials on the individual programs.



Has anyone been using VersionCue? Pondering over what i've seen today, i think todd, paul, and adolph would really gain something from looking at this stuff....

The 2nd Day & a quick poster comment

Today, he knew. He knew that when his mother put him down she would leave so he kept her close. The first time she tried to put him down he clutched at her -- hard. So she waited a bit. Eventually she got him down, but he kept her close, showing her the chairs and some of the other kids. He clamored to be picked up again, so she picked him up. Then, Bernie (teacher #2) came in. Adolfo iv gives Bernie a kiss-kiss. Carol quickly transfers adolfo to her arms and says 'bye-bye!' His face explodes and contorts to what we call his 'poochie' face. Carol walks out the door and as she looks back through the windows of the classroom only to see his face red and wet with tears.

She called me right after she left. She wasn't crying this time, just a little sad.

I would think that posters like this still exist, but the majority of us don't visit too many free clinics anymore, which is where (i think) a lot of these sorts of posters are hung.

?

Why dont they have posters like this anymore?



Monday, February 16, 2004

Public Health Posters

Hey Todd,


Check this out: Visual Culture Home
Snow in Austin?

KVUE News:
KVUE Chief Meteorologist Mark Murray said it was the most snow in Austin proper in almost 20 years. "

So it snows in Austin and there's not even one post about it on the blog? What are those digital cameras good fer anywho?

"My God, what is this?" - President James A. Garfield

On July 2, 1881, in a Washington railroad station, an embittered attorney who had sought a consular post shot the President.

Mortally wounded, Garfield lay in the White House for weeks. Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, tried unsuccessfully to find the bullet with an induction-balance electrical device which he had designed. On September 6, Garfield was taken to the New Jersey seaside. For a few days he seemed to be recuperating, but on September 19, 1881, he died from an infection and internal hemorrhage.

Happy Presidents Day!

This post is dedicated to the great, yet hard to remember Chester Arthur. He was, in the words of one biographer:
Dignified, tall, and handsome, with clean-shaven chin and side-whiskers, Chester A. Arthur "looked like a President."
Read more about Arthur here

Another hard to remember President is Rutherford Hayes. This President was not as fashionable as Chester and was subject to many cruel epigrams, including:
If your shoes are shabby, and your coller is fray'd
You probably shoppe at the same store as Rutherford Hayes
and
Rutherford, Rutherford, your voting record may be honoroable
but your overcoat and hat look down right abominable
I know you're not a Whig, but I really must say
you dress as cheap
as a 5 cent toupee
Read more about Ruth here

Adolfo IV Goes To School




I am more worried for carol than adolfo. She called me from the North Loop this morning, crying.

"Babe, how'd he do?"

" -*sob*- -*sniff*- He's....fine... -*sob*- -*sniff*-.... He didn't even notice i was -*sob*- gone..."

We spent our entire Sunday afternoon getting ready for this week. We (adolfo and i) began the morning with an episode of Jakers, the cutest show on television. Then, once mom woke up, we went out to Taquitos (paul's favorite mex breakfast joint outside the loop) for breakfast. He ate about half a papas con huevo taco and some orange juice before he clamored to be let out of his seat. Luckily for me, i'm a fast eater.

The rest of the day, carol cooked. All in total she prepared four full sized meals - all neatly sealed in tupperware containers for the rest of the week:

1. Spaghetti - this, of course, is too simple a name. It is spaghetti with a mild italian sausage, chunky garden sauce (ragu), cubed zuchinni, and yellow squash.

2. Chicken and Rice - This is one of adolfo's favorites. Rice cooked in fresh tomatoes and onion, with chicken wings boiled in. The meat is then stripped off the bone for a soft yummy meal.

3. Mediterranean Black Bean Soup - I think she just followed the instructions outside the bean mix, but it's still a hearty soup.

4. Oatmeal - Quaker Oat oatmeal with condensed milk and cinnamon sticks.

Adolfo's first lunch will be the Chicken and Rice with seedless red grapes (all of them cut in half.) See his schedule here.

If anything, he will be extremely well fed.

school daze

So, little killito is going to be having his first day of school today! everyone send kind thoughts to killy and carol as they face the hardship of leaving their little bundle of joy in the caring and capable hands of strangers.

Friday, February 13, 2004

Scantily Clad, Apparently Greek and/or Paralyzed Lady Holding an Apple

I did this drawing the other day. I call it "Scantily Clad, Apparently Greak and/or Paralyzed Lady Holding an Apple." The drawing was done from life. The models name is greek and hard to pronounce.


My brother suggested the tile: "This sheet is so heavy I have to use this apple as a counterbalance..."















Thursday, February 12, 2004

Staying at Adolph's place has been great, except for the gnomes.

At last count there are about 12 species of gnomes living in or around Adolph's apartment. Most are quite harmless, but some are quite mischevious. Here is an abbreviated list:

  • The Faucet Gnome: This meddlesome gnome is short and gnomish even by gnomish standards. He delights in making the faucet drip, especially at night or when somebody nearby is trying to concentrate on important programming details. He has a particular knack for making faucets drip into bowls of water. Solitary, nocturnal, omnivorous. Especially likes to drink 2 day old coffee.

  • The Bearded Face Gnome: the Bearded Face Gnome can be found in family groups of up to 20 or more. These gnomes are mostly harmless, their only noticieable behaviour being this- they creep around at night collecting the drool from your pillow and using it to plant stubble on your face. Once the stubble sprouts they tend it carefully so that it grows into a beard. No one is quite sure why they grow beards on people's faces, but many speculate that they use some of the beard hair to make some kind of gnomish beer(d).

  • The Crusty Cheese Gnome: The Crusty Cheese Gnome and his cousin the Crusty Tortilla Gnome delight in unwrapping your carefully wrapped cheese and tortillas so that they are exposed to the open air and become unedibly crusty. These gnomes are also suspected of other food related mischief such as: making bread moldy, changing the expiration date on egg cartons so that entire cartons go bad, hiding the butter when you look for it so that you buy more butter only to find the old butter and thus accumulate enormous quantities of butter, most of which goes bad, etc.

  • The Dr. Pepper Gnome: The Dr. Pepper Gnome only comes around every once and a while, almost exclusively on the weekends. He has red hair and is covered with freckles and smokes. He is also identified by his extraordinary vocabulary. This gnome cannot resist Dr. Pepper and if left uncrontrolled he will drink all the Dr. Pepper in the house. He likes to hang out and swap bad puns with the G Gnome.


Of course I have not mentioned the Half Empty Beer Bottle Gnome, the NPR Gnome, the iBook Fan Noise Gnome, the Mechanical Pencil Lead Breaker Gnome, or any of the Deviated Septum and Post Nasal Drip Gnomes.

Wednesday, February 11, 2004

Liz

What you're doing wrong is

you're not posting to the GIRL blog!



what's up with that!!??



Tuesday, February 10, 2004

Futbol: U.S.A versus Mexico Olympic Qualifier Tonight

Tonight the US under 23 team plays Mexico, in �Mexico! This is a super important match because the winner goes to the Olympics in Athens! I expect everyone to be praying to their respective dieties, making the appropriate sacrifices, etc in support of our boys.

4 to 0! 4 to 0! How could we lose 4 to 0?Horrible! Horrible!





A Record Store

iTunes Music store is starting to become a funky old record store with the craziest stuff, like Celebramos by Kool & The Gang. I found it in the "Foreign Affairs" iTunes Essentials playlist.

Monday, February 9, 2004

more iMovie and SD-10

if the SD-10 makes movie files that end in .AVI you can import them directly into iMovie without converting them. i am pretty sure you can do that with .MOV files as well, but adolph generally knows what he is talking about.

iMovie & SD10

Liz,
Typically still cameras do not have a video direct to computer mode. To put a camera into iMovie, you have to do a few things: (1.) make movie on camera, (2.) transfer movie file from camera to computer, (3.) change mpeg or mov file from camera into a iMovie-ready dv file with Quicktime Pro, and (4.) import the .dv file into iMovie. On high-end digital SLR's, like the SD-10, the Firewire interface is for special software meant to operate the camera and move picture files. Most do not even take short movies since the shutter remains closed over the sensor. Your results may vary.

hello fellow blog-bugs

just wanted to give you the flashing banner of my life



i was recently in a car accident

super small fender bender

no injuries...

my baby poked his little eye

at home, not in the car, i was all alone during the accident

and he cried and cried and cried

i eat donuts every friday at work

and lots of chocolate during the week



nothing else really



but it's all good.

Sunday, February 8, 2004

How do I use IMovie with my SD10?

When I open up imovie with my sd10 ATTACHED with a fire wire, imovie says, "no camara attached" What am I doing wrong?

Saturday, February 7, 2004

Yes! I know!


There are only three egg shells but four eggs!

What did i win?

Friday, February 6, 2004

We Bake Cake!

Can anyone spot what is wrong with this picture?







Miserable


I got one wisdom tooth pulled, one tooth root yanked out and two fillings put in all in one sitting.

I am not very happy today.

Tuesday, February 3, 2004

Don't believe anything you see

Simply amazing stuff:
Greg's Digital Portfolio
Congratulatory Ritual Breakfast

In my country it is customary to eat the following breakfast in honor of those couples who have just conceived:
  • 2 Sincronizadas (ham and cheese): The sincronizida symbolizes the binding of opposing forces in the galaxy, into a harmonious and tasty whole.

  • 1 serving of yogurt or yogurt like product: Yogurt represents the life giving force of nature in her various mammary forms

  • 1/2 of Avocado: Avocado is included only to maintain backwards compatability with previous versions of this ritual breakfast.

1GB, mmmmm,hmmmmm

Things are getting cheaper every day, although still a bit more than I'm interested in paying:
dealram: 1GB Apple PowerBook G4 12in, 867MHz, PC2100 Computer Memory (PC2100 DDR 200-pin SO-DIMMs (266MHz))

Amber and Antny are pregnant

YEP

You heard me right

They are newly expecting

newly

and doing the virgo move

which is a wise one as well all can agree

Monday, February 2, 2004

Walking


I caught this shot one weekend morning as we were walking around the block towards Lost Creek Park.



Here's the iphoto info:



I had it set on the 'Vivid' setting; other canon owners will know what i'm talking about. Hence, the extraordinarily blue sky (it WAS pretty nice outside, however). I'm a little puzzled about the max aperture (f/3) line, tho. Can anyone explain this? The exposure for this shot was f/5.6, the exposure for other darker shots has been 2.8. I don't know where this f/3 comes from.

I worked it in photoshop. I brought it in and created a duplicate layer. I used an levels adjustment layer to brighten the tree (and the sky with it) and then selected all the branches using the wand. I then, created a mask with the branch selection, and inversed it and painted over it with the paintbrush with the opacity set to about 30%, bringing out the branches a little at a time.

Then, just for kicks, i put a diffuse glow on the branches to make it pretty.

The Story Continues!


So, aninvestigation get's launched...what could be next?
...

**Exclusive**

Top CBS executives approved a musical skit where Janet Jackson would expose her breast during the MTV-produced Super Bowl half-time concert, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
"The decision to go forward went to the very top of the network," a well-placed source explained from New York.

Clearly Justin Was just Trying to prove that Janet was a space alien

So Justin Timberlake seizes the microphone and screams:

"Citizens of Earth!. Janet Jackson is not really Janet Jackson! She is a hideaous space creature disguised as a pop singer! She is not soft and brown but scaly and reptiliian, like those creatures from the hit mini-series V. And if you don't believe me, then I will prove it to you by pulling off her fake skin, like this!"


But foolish Justin did not count on the clevernesss of the Visitors. They learned alot from their horrible defeat back in 1983 and have disguised themselves almost perfectly. Even he, a formerly ardent member of the resistance, was co-opted. Instead of sticking to his guns, he recounts his claim against Janet:

"I am sorry if anyone was offended by the wardrobe malfunction during the halftime performance of the Super Bowl. It was not intentional and is regrettable."


I mean, how lame is that? Why didn't he continue to insist that he was merely trying to prove that Miss Jackson was one of the thousands of space aliens that have occupied earth bent on destroying our planet by carrying off all the water from the oceans to feed their ruined homeworld? I mean the only thing lamer of him would have been to say:


"I am sorry if anyone was offended by the breast exposure related half-time show activities..."

The Casualties of Entertainment




And we missed it! So did she slap him on national t.v.? Did she run off the stage? or did she stand there with this 'the show must go on' look? Can anyone put this into context?

Sunday, February 1, 2004

Coffee Morning


I wish i had remembered to bring my mmc card reader so i could have included a picture right as i'm posting this. Carol and i woke up around 8 with the baby, changed his diaper and put him in front of the t.v. (jay jay the jet plane) so we could get ourselves together and prepare some breakfast.

After a big breakfast of eggs, rice, pancakes, apple juice and milk we cleaned up and headed out of the house for some coffee (we ran out of regular coffee about two days ago and have consistently forgotten to pick some up at kroger.)

It's a Grind is a franchise out of California that sits in an 'island' strip mall that sits in the parking lot of another strip mall. It's a nice enough place and it's got a nice wi-fi connection. Adolfo iv is running around like a fiend. He's also enjoying an apple danish with his apple juice.