I moved away from Wyoming. I left it behind. I do NOT live there right now. So tell me this:
WHY THE HELL IS IT SO COLD RIGHT NOW???? It should not be 14 degrees out if you're not living in Wyoming any more!!
Monday, December 15, 2008
Springfield makes it onto Failblog
see more pwn and owned pictures
I've found this hilarious since we moved here. Glad to see it getting the recognition it deserves!
Friday, December 12, 2008
Holiday greetings
A fitting holiday message, given that the source is me:
Kim sent this to me today. Does my wifey know me or what?? :)
Kim sent this to me today. Does my wifey know me or what?? :)
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Since I'm still up - time to Simplify!
I figure I might as well mention this, since I never have seemed to remember to before when I'm in a blogging mood:
GO GET SIMPLIFY MEDIA RIGHT NOW!!!!!
It is simply the best software out there for making your music library portable and sharing it with your friends. Any time I'm away from the house and have a 'net connection, I can tune in to my iTunes library with Simplify. It streams it all from your home computer and lets you listen. For friends, they can stream it as well. The only limitation is that DRM-enabled files (read: Stuff you bought from the iTunes store) will only play on authorized computers, so they can only see a subset of your library.
I've been using since they came out in 2007, and it's one of the coolest pieces of software I've come across. There were some growing pains, as I'd expect of any large, networked piece of software like this, but they've done a fabulous job. I'm happy for them that they've been so successful with their release of their iPhone app - they're finally making some money back from all their hard work! And if you've got an iPhone, why wouldn't you want to be able to stream all your music from home to wherever you are?? Just knowing Simplify is available makes me want to get one even more.... Santa will bring me one if I ask enough, right?? :D
We've got a few friends on our Simplify account right now, and it's a great way to get to know more about them and what they listen to. Call me weird, but I've always thought you can tell a lot about a person by the music they identify themselves with. I guess that makes me a rather eclectic individual! :)
GO GET SIMPLIFY MEDIA RIGHT NOW!!!!!
It is simply the best software out there for making your music library portable and sharing it with your friends. Any time I'm away from the house and have a 'net connection, I can tune in to my iTunes library with Simplify. It streams it all from your home computer and lets you listen. For friends, they can stream it as well. The only limitation is that DRM-enabled files (read: Stuff you bought from the iTunes store) will only play on authorized computers, so they can only see a subset of your library.
I've been using since they came out in 2007, and it's one of the coolest pieces of software I've come across. There were some growing pains, as I'd expect of any large, networked piece of software like this, but they've done a fabulous job. I'm happy for them that they've been so successful with their release of their iPhone app - they're finally making some money back from all their hard work! And if you've got an iPhone, why wouldn't you want to be able to stream all your music from home to wherever you are?? Just knowing Simplify is available makes me want to get one even more.... Santa will bring me one if I ask enough, right?? :D
We've got a few friends on our Simplify account right now, and it's a great way to get to know more about them and what they listen to. Call me weird, but I've always thought you can tell a lot about a person by the music they identify themselves with. I guess that makes me a rather eclectic individual! :)
Late night ramblings
• Man, there are a lot of crazies out there in the world of blogging. Every so often, I'll go through the Feedjit link here on the blog to see what else is being written around the area or browse the Google blog search and just read. Maybe tonight was abnormal, but I found several blogs that just sounded like the rantings of paranoid schizophrenics in the midst of a meltdown - only the posts have been coming for months now! With some of the hatred and prejudice I encountered, it made me a little uncomfortable seeing the dark underbelly of the First Amendment. I'm not of a mind to want to silence these folks by any means, but wow there's some crazy shite out there on the Wild 'n' Wooly Interwebs.
• I hate upset stomachs. I went to bed almost 2 hours ago, and couldn't sleep, which led to my stroll through Blogland. I should know by now not to eat snacks before bed!!
• Anisa was so funny on the phone when I called home during my lunch break. "Daddy, we got the good cheesy poofs! Not the ones that taste awful, like at Jake and Jenny's!" I was glad I was stopped at a red light at the time; I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. We spent the weekend up in Columbia with our friends. Their daughter is about nine months old now and had some of the baby cheese poofs as a starter food. As you can tell, they were not a big hit with Anisa. Jasmine, however, LOVED them. I think she likes the "good" ones even better, though. It was a fun weekend all around, though. I just wish I'd been in a better frame of mind so I could enjoy it a bit more. Everything that came down last week at work was just weighing on my mind.
I mean, could I have picked a worse time to be promoted? Well, I'm sure there are worse circumstances than this, but it still sucks. I wanted to be playing with numbers and coding some stuff up for the web, not jostling job duties and telling people that, like it or not, you're going to be moving to some night shifts. Maybe it's just me, but if there are 4 fewer people working at putting out a product, shouldn't that product be reduced by something close to 4 people's worth of work? Instead, we get to "do more with less!" Sure, we're cutting our output a little bit, but I'd bet that it isn't even close to 40 hours a week worth, let alone 160. Instead, we focus on efficiency and workflow. Layoffs are a big enough hit to employee morale, but working them harder when they were already being asked to do a lot is not going to make things better. I just hope that three months from now, everyone at work can look back and see this as the low point.
• At least there looks to be some hope for an auto industry bailout. On an objective level, I'm not overly thrilled by it. There's a reason why the U.S. companies are in the position they are, while foreign auto makers are still thriving (though not without suffering in this economic climate). They've made bad choices for years - decades even - and didn't have a plan on how to survive if everything went in the crapper. So now, the taxpayers should foot the bill? Ugh, how crappy. I understand there is a bigger picture here that it affects and it's probably in the best interest of the economy as a whole to try and prop them up until things get better, much like bailing out AIG was probably a good thing for the long-term health of the economy. It doesn't mean I have to enjoy it.
On a purely selfish level, I'm absolutely ecstatic about this. The one thing the print media industry can't afford is an even bigger loss in ad revenue from the auto companies. There's already been a big drop, and if any of the Detroit Three had gone under, that would have been a huge loss for us, too. We probably would have been looking at another round of staff cuts in our near future, and that's something I don't want to see again for at least another decade.
I keep hoping that the plan that was put in place factored in the projected troubles of the next year (and that those projections are either accurate or overestimated the troubles we'll face). I just want to be able to hold on to what we have, make it through this rough patch, and come out on the other side better for the experience. I don't want to be part of a company that goes through bankruptcy like the Tribune company has. I'm still shocked that the company that owns the LA Times and the Chicago Tribune is hurting that bad. I hope the commentary that they're the exception rather than the expectation for newspapers holds true.
• I hate upset stomachs. I went to bed almost 2 hours ago, and couldn't sleep, which led to my stroll through Blogland. I should know by now not to eat snacks before bed!!
• Anisa was so funny on the phone when I called home during my lunch break. "Daddy, we got the good cheesy poofs! Not the ones that taste awful, like at Jake and Jenny's!" I was glad I was stopped at a red light at the time; I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. We spent the weekend up in Columbia with our friends. Their daughter is about nine months old now and had some of the baby cheese poofs as a starter food. As you can tell, they were not a big hit with Anisa. Jasmine, however, LOVED them. I think she likes the "good" ones even better, though. It was a fun weekend all around, though. I just wish I'd been in a better frame of mind so I could enjoy it a bit more. Everything that came down last week at work was just weighing on my mind.
I mean, could I have picked a worse time to be promoted? Well, I'm sure there are worse circumstances than this, but it still sucks. I wanted to be playing with numbers and coding some stuff up for the web, not jostling job duties and telling people that, like it or not, you're going to be moving to some night shifts. Maybe it's just me, but if there are 4 fewer people working at putting out a product, shouldn't that product be reduced by something close to 4 people's worth of work? Instead, we get to "do more with less!" Sure, we're cutting our output a little bit, but I'd bet that it isn't even close to 40 hours a week worth, let alone 160. Instead, we focus on efficiency and workflow. Layoffs are a big enough hit to employee morale, but working them harder when they were already being asked to do a lot is not going to make things better. I just hope that three months from now, everyone at work can look back and see this as the low point.
• At least there looks to be some hope for an auto industry bailout. On an objective level, I'm not overly thrilled by it. There's a reason why the U.S. companies are in the position they are, while foreign auto makers are still thriving (though not without suffering in this economic climate). They've made bad choices for years - decades even - and didn't have a plan on how to survive if everything went in the crapper. So now, the taxpayers should foot the bill? Ugh, how crappy. I understand there is a bigger picture here that it affects and it's probably in the best interest of the economy as a whole to try and prop them up until things get better, much like bailing out AIG was probably a good thing for the long-term health of the economy. It doesn't mean I have to enjoy it.
On a purely selfish level, I'm absolutely ecstatic about this. The one thing the print media industry can't afford is an even bigger loss in ad revenue from the auto companies. There's already been a big drop, and if any of the Detroit Three had gone under, that would have been a huge loss for us, too. We probably would have been looking at another round of staff cuts in our near future, and that's something I don't want to see again for at least another decade.
I keep hoping that the plan that was put in place factored in the projected troubles of the next year (and that those projections are either accurate or overestimated the troubles we'll face). I just want to be able to hold on to what we have, make it through this rough patch, and come out on the other side better for the experience. I don't want to be part of a company that goes through bankruptcy like the Tribune company has. I'm still shocked that the company that owns the LA Times and the Chicago Tribune is hurting that bad. I hope the commentary that they're the exception rather than the expectation for newspapers holds true.
Monday, December 8, 2008
IsItFunnyToday.com
http://www.isitfunnytoday.com/
This has been a pleasant find. I've been reading web comics for years now, and what I like about this site is that it functions both as an aggregator of comics (which is really helpful) and a social network for comics that lets us all voice our opinions on comics while voting on their funniness. It's not a perfect site yet, but having just launched I think they have a solid foundation to build on.
Some upgrades I'd like to see:
• More complete access to archives of comics to vote going all the way back, with the archetypical "First Comic" link to take you back to the beginning and start from there.
• If you've already voted for a comic while logged in, the frame at the top should reflect that. As it is now, it will say "Sorry, you've already voted" when you try to vote a second time. It should say this before you even have a chance to vote.
I've quite enjoyed the site and they're adding more comics every day (What, no Goats.com yet??), so if you like your daily dose of web comics, give 'em a try.
This has been a pleasant find. I've been reading web comics for years now, and what I like about this site is that it functions both as an aggregator of comics (which is really helpful) and a social network for comics that lets us all voice our opinions on comics while voting on their funniness. It's not a perfect site yet, but having just launched I think they have a solid foundation to build on.
Some upgrades I'd like to see:
• More complete access to archives of comics to vote going all the way back, with the archetypical "First Comic" link to take you back to the beginning and start from there.
• If you've already voted for a comic while logged in, the frame at the top should reflect that. As it is now, it will say "Sorry, you've already voted" when you try to vote a second time. It should say this before you even have a chance to vote.
I've quite enjoyed the site and they're adding more comics every day (What, no Goats.com yet??), so if you like your daily dose of web comics, give 'em a try.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Number watching in an economic crisis
I've been keeping my eye on several numbers that are big indicators of where we stand as the economy melts down. The biggest one that I pay attention to is the unemployment rate, which officially spiked to 6.7% today. As the NYTimes blogged about today, that number doesn't account for the 637,000 people that have given up and stopped looking for jobs. If that number were included, it would push the unemployment rate close to 7% - a far cry from the peak of 25% reached in the Great Depression, but a disturbing number nonetheless. The percentage is even more disheartening when you think about the population of the country at both times.
Breaking it down to the heart of the issue in the article:
Yeah, that's not good.
Breaking it down to the heart of the issue in the article:
The share of all men ages and 16 and over who are working is now at its lowest level since the government began keeping statistics in the 1940’s.
Yeah, that's not good.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Why I love the Daily Show
A clip from Monday, Dec. 1:
Bits like this are exactly why I love the Daily Show: Serious news with a dose of profanity and humor tossed in to tell a better story.
Bits like this are exactly why I love the Daily Show: Serious news with a dose of profanity and humor tossed in to tell a better story.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Thanksgiving thoughts
Well, it's been a busy week around here. My parents were out here to visit, which is always nice. The girls especially like having them around, since they've missed Grandma and Grandpa a ton since we moved out here. It will be even better when they get moved out here and can see the girls every couple of days instead of every few months!
I'm really happy about that. Family was something that I felt like I kind of missed out on growing up. It's tough to be close to people that you only see once a year around the holidays when everything is chaotic anyway! So I was really happy that we were in Laramie, just a mile or so away from my parents, and the girls would have a chance to grow up around them and get to be close to them. It was hard for me to decide to make the move to Missouri and that was a big part of why. But it was much easier when my parents said they would plan on moving somewhere in the Missouri-Tennessee area to be closer to all their grandkids. Heck, even if they had gone to Nashville, that would be close enough to make the trip in a day rather than the two days of driving it takes to get out here now. But, if they end up with the house they're going after now, it'll put them 10-15 minutes away, which is maybe as far as I have to drive to get to work - and that will be nice - for the kids, for them, and for us.
Having them around always gets me thinking about stuff like this, and Thanksgiving has made me think about it even more. I'm glad to have them around and to get a chance to know them more. I didn't get to know them as much as I could have growing up, especially my dad, since I was spending so much energy just trying to get to know myself and figure out who I was, but it's been nice the last several years getting to be an adult and deal with them as roughly equals rather than inside the parent/kid dynamic. It took me a few years of being out on my own and not being around them to really appreciate them simply as people rather than always thinking of them as "parents".
And none of us are perfect or even close to it, but when I hear about other families and what other people went through growing up, it always makes me remember just how good I had it and lucky I was to have the parents I did. We didn't always get along great, though we got along just fine far more than we didn't; we didn't always see eye-to-eye; I know my name is on a fair amount of the gray hairs up on their wizened heads. But even when I was being punished or didn't agree with them, I always had an understanding that they were doing what they thought was good for me. When so many parents don't keep that in mind as the primary motivation for being a parent, it makes me smile to know that mine always did.
I'm never all that good at vocalizing this kind of stuff and talking about it. I just have these thoughts and I've never had a good outlet for them, so I'm trying to take advantage this blog for stuff like this, since I've always been able to write better than I can speak.
So that's my Thanksgiving thought for this year - Thank you for being good parents and looking out for me without stifling me. It wasn't an easy job to do, but you pulled through admirably.
While I'm at it, I have more to say. I need to say Thanks! to Kim too. It's one of those things - I tend not to write about her or my thoughts about her on here. Mostly because I see her at home all the time and I feel like I say most of the stuff I think about to her. But when I really think about it, I don't. At least, not nearly enough. But, she puts up with my crap and manages to do it (mostly) with a smile on her face. I'm not an easy person to live with, but she always finds a way to get through it and make the best of it. So thank you for being my wife and for putting in the work it takes to keep our household and our life functioning in their own little way. And thanks for putting up with me and not smothering me in my sleep when I snore! :)
I'm really happy about that. Family was something that I felt like I kind of missed out on growing up. It's tough to be close to people that you only see once a year around the holidays when everything is chaotic anyway! So I was really happy that we were in Laramie, just a mile or so away from my parents, and the girls would have a chance to grow up around them and get to be close to them. It was hard for me to decide to make the move to Missouri and that was a big part of why. But it was much easier when my parents said they would plan on moving somewhere in the Missouri-Tennessee area to be closer to all their grandkids. Heck, even if they had gone to Nashville, that would be close enough to make the trip in a day rather than the two days of driving it takes to get out here now. But, if they end up with the house they're going after now, it'll put them 10-15 minutes away, which is maybe as far as I have to drive to get to work - and that will be nice - for the kids, for them, and for us.
Having them around always gets me thinking about stuff like this, and Thanksgiving has made me think about it even more. I'm glad to have them around and to get a chance to know them more. I didn't get to know them as much as I could have growing up, especially my dad, since I was spending so much energy just trying to get to know myself and figure out who I was, but it's been nice the last several years getting to be an adult and deal with them as roughly equals rather than inside the parent/kid dynamic. It took me a few years of being out on my own and not being around them to really appreciate them simply as people rather than always thinking of them as "parents".
And none of us are perfect or even close to it, but when I hear about other families and what other people went through growing up, it always makes me remember just how good I had it and lucky I was to have the parents I did. We didn't always get along great, though we got along just fine far more than we didn't; we didn't always see eye-to-eye; I know my name is on a fair amount of the gray hairs up on their wizened heads. But even when I was being punished or didn't agree with them, I always had an understanding that they were doing what they thought was good for me. When so many parents don't keep that in mind as the primary motivation for being a parent, it makes me smile to know that mine always did.
I'm never all that good at vocalizing this kind of stuff and talking about it. I just have these thoughts and I've never had a good outlet for them, so I'm trying to take advantage this blog for stuff like this, since I've always been able to write better than I can speak.
So that's my Thanksgiving thought for this year - Thank you for being good parents and looking out for me without stifling me. It wasn't an easy job to do, but you pulled through admirably.
While I'm at it, I have more to say. I need to say Thanks! to Kim too. It's one of those things - I tend not to write about her or my thoughts about her on here. Mostly because I see her at home all the time and I feel like I say most of the stuff I think about to her. But when I really think about it, I don't. At least, not nearly enough. But, she puts up with my crap and manages to do it (mostly) with a smile on her face. I'm not an easy person to live with, but she always finds a way to get through it and make the best of it. So thank you for being my wife and for putting in the work it takes to keep our household and our life functioning in their own little way. And thanks for putting up with me and not smothering me in my sleep when I snore! :)
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Daft Punk fan video - "Daft Hands"
Had I been blogging when this first came out, I'd have been all over it. But, alas, I was not. Anyway, I stumbled across this video again today and thought I'd share because it's so freakin' awesome!!
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