Quote of the day 6-13-09

“THAT is when people lose their temper and what it says in the paper is; ‘Custody Officer Assaults Inmate’. It doesn’t say; ‘Three Inmates Spent Six Hours Flooding Shit Water and Throwing Poop Balls At The Guy Until He Lost His Mind… And Assaulted The Inmate.”

~ 2 Guys 1 Brain podcast
http://www.2g1b.com

LOL



6-11-09

So how has everybody been?

These days, I tend to be most active on social networks than on my own blog.  In other words, the best way to keep up with what I am doing, thinking, reading, taking pictures of, etc. is by following me on Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed, etc.  Friendfeed actually aggregates ALL my online activity into one feed, so lately that’s been the best way to “follow” me as it’s sort-of a catch-all for all my various online activities.  Friendfeed is great, you should try it.

It’s interesting that in the “old days” when the internet was new, everybody had “home page” web sites and those pages linked to various other websites they found interesting or useful.  Next came blogs, and now it’s social networking sites that are the most popular.  NOW, people are going BACK to having Personal Home Pages, but this time those pages have links to their various social network online presences, sort of like a Table of Contents or “jump page”.  My jump page is here: http://www.MyOtherStuff.net



Looking for a house to rent.

Fort Myers, originally uploaded by Laserone ☆ Lauren.

Browsing houses to rent. Hey locals, let me know if u know of any decent houses for rent. Thx. (Ft. Myers, Fl. area)



Chinese Drywall in our house?

http://twitter.com/laserone
I hate my life right now. I don’t know how much more I can take.
google it
And some homeowners claim their animals have died from Chinese Drywall fumes. God I hope that part is not true! I’ll live in my car if I have to!
Update:
WE HAVE the corroded copper wires.
WE HAVE the sulfur smell.
(found when we went behind the drywall)



iPhone alternative? iPhone Idea / iPod Touch Idea.

I was thinking earlier: They ought to make an iPhone that’s not a phone, i.e. an iPod Touch that has unlimited 3G Internet, a camera, a mic, GPS, etc, but no phone aspect.  Sort-of a pocket ineternet device for people that already have a cell phone.  It would be cheaper to buy and could be like, $49 a month instead of $69 a month for the internet-only service.

Why?  For people who are stuck in a contract w/ another carrier and don’t want to break contract. For people who’s spouses would freak out if they broke a cell contract and/or got a second cell phone. Seriously.



I freakin love this band. Keane.

“Everybody’s Changing”



My Recent Twitter Tweets


Comment I saw re. Swine Flu

I thought neilk85’s  comment on digg re. the Swine Flu scare was interesting:

“this is scare mongering….remember all the fear and projections involving Bird Flu and how it would lead to hundreds of thousand if not millions of deaths? Well, guess what only 248 people (worldwide) have died of the Bird Flu TOTAL….i.e. since the its inception. (http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=953876n)

Thats it, and for comparison the common flu virus, Influenza, leads to 500,000 deaths worldwide ANNUALLY and how often do you see people freak out, wear masks etc over Influenza (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza).

The media often overblows the risk for these catastrophic “disease of the day” stories…..you’re several hundred or thousands of times more likely to die from plain old influenza, car accidents, and cancer so lets just chill out for a sec.”



I broke my images.

Pic for my blogs., originally uploaded by Laserone ☆ Lauren.

Note I’m putting on my blogs:
ALERT!: I broke my image links, so if you see a “photo is currently unavailable” thing instead of a photo, just click on it to go to the photo page on flickr.***

Well, apparently, on Flickr, if you make an image private then switch it back, the url breaks! I did this with ALL my flickr images, so now all my blogs are messed up; all the images are broken. YAY!!!!! >:|



The Silent Minority: The Non-Religious.

I was reading an interesting article today (anything that I “Digg” or bookmark, you can see on my friendfeed)-

“”The Silent Minority: The Non-Religious.
— There is a minority group in America that is a
bigger percentage of the country than blacks or Hispanics. But they
are often ignored or derided in public. Almost no politician would
ever admit to being one. And they are given no voice in the public
arena. They are the non-religious”"

Article is here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/the-silent-minority_b_173354.html

I liked this quote:

“”I’ve always been amused at the idea that a religious person can say
that an atheist will burn in hell as a result of their beliefs, and
that is not considered offensive; but if an atheist says that
believing in God makes no sense, that is considered deeply offensive.
One person is charging the other with faulty logic; the other is
charging them with a base immorality that warrants eternal torture.
How is the former even vaguely more insulting than the latter?”"



Drawing in my sketchbook and listening to podacsts.

Drawing in my sketchbook and listening to podacsts.



Drawing in the late-night hours.

Listening to the “2 Guys 1 Brain” podcast and drawing in my sketchbook. The sun’s about to come up, I think.

http://www.2guys1brain.com



How to check multiple webmail accounts at once (MAC)?

Does anyone know… When I was using a PC, I used a program called ePrompter to *check multiple webmail accounts at once, *especially multiples of each (i.e. several yahoo accounts at once, as well as hotmail, gmail, etc.). There is no ePrompter for the Mac. Is there a similar program for the Mac? Or even a web-based service like that which I can use on the mac? I’m having no luck via google. Any ideas?



Dinner

Dinner, originally uploaded by Laserone ☆ Lauren.

Here’s an interesting article:
“Coffee shop as workplace brews up office politics”
www.twincities.com/ci_11617389
.
Taken w/ my iphone, but I did take some pix w/ my other camera. Instead of using my tiny keychain camera, I used my Nikon S6. I’ll upload those pix later. :)



Is DNA Open Source?

The other day I was thinking about how DNA works.  How strands of DNA have “code” in it, and DNA replicates itself, and somehow DNA strands communicate their code for new strands.  (Maybe I have it all wrong, idunno.)  But, I realized that, in that case, DNA is essentially “open source”.  :)



Good quote (re. the RIAA)

“The RIAA’s charter is to promote the financial interests of its corporate members—even if that means preserving an obsolete business model for its members.”

from:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/02/tell-the-riaa-to-take-a-hike-how-harvard-law-threw-down-the-gauntlet.ars



Flickr and Jing

You may notice that in the recent blog posts below there are flickr broken-image placeholders which look like this:

What happened was I had, over time, uploaded many photos to flickr using the very cool screenshot program, Jing.  My Jing history got way too big and was bogging things down.  After inquiring with Jing, I found out the only way to clear the history in Jing on the Mac was to shift-click-select a handful at a time and hit delete.  (there is no select-all)  My correspondant at Jing warned me that any screenshots I uploaded to their screencast.com site using Jing would also result in the online image being deleted.  Fine.  No problem.  I never upload anything to screencast.com.  Well, what they didn’t tell me was that anything I uploaded to FLICKR using jing would also be deleted!  Well, shit, now all those flickr images that I linked to are gone now.  *sigh*  Well, at least my Jing history is cleared now and things are no longer bogged down.  But now I have all these broken-image placeholders all over all my blogs and websites.  I gave them feedback re. this, so I am hoping they fix this or at least add a warning to the software.  So now, to post screenshots online, I first save them to my hard drive and THEN upload them using the flickr uploader instead of the Jing software.  More work, but it’s safer.



I hate people

I am so sick of people.

I am walking across the restaurant at Panera Bread and the way people look at me! They stare. But they don’t just stare. They have these looks on their faces of horror. Like they’ve never seen a fat person before. You’d think I was wearing a swastika t-shirt or something, the way they look so horrified. Yes, I am fat, but there are lots of fat people in this town, and many who are fatter than me. So I really don’t understand why people look at me that way.

This one table had a woman and two high-school girls from the local catholic high school, the high school girl stared at me with the worst sneer. I looked back at her and just stared back. She would NOT stop staring at me with this sneer. So when I got to my table, I put my tray down and just kept looking at her. She was looking at me over her shoulder, so this took effort, and it also told me that someone had pointed me out to her, because otherwise how would she know I was there, behind her, across the room?  It became a staring contest.

What is the deal?  Yes I am fat, but I’m not crowd-stoppingly fat!  I think I’m ugly but everyone tells me I’m not, but really, who would admit to your face that you are?

I wish I had taken that bitch’s picture.  I have a rule: piss me off and I moblog you.

But it’s not just her, the little catholic soccer player.  Many heads turn as I walk thru a room, and MANY of those heads continue to track me with some sort of sneer, horror, disdain or other some such offended look.

I’m not paranoid.  I SEE it.  I am not blind, I can SEE them.  I fucking hate people.



Bummer


Bummer, originally uploaded by Laserone ☆ Lauren.

screencap from www.monacome.com/2008/11/kristen-stewart-smoking-pot-phot…

Captured and shared with the Jing Project



Yeah, noticed that. …


Yeah, noticed that. …, originally uploaded by Laserone ☆ Lauren.

I had noticed before that [Kristen Stewart, star of Twilight] frowned and rolled her eyes through interviews, big ones, like David Letterman. Many have noticed this and complained online. It’s a real put-off and rather unprofessional when you consider she is representing a franchise and it’s her job to promote. I know that you can’t always act happy when you aren’t (lordy knows I know that) but you would think you COULD kill the frown and just NOT ROLL YOUR EYES on freaking camera when it’s your job. I loved the movie, but seeing behavior like this takes something away from the pleasure of the movie experience. That is why I avoided all star interviews and behind-the-scenes stuff before I saw the movie. I’m glad I did. Sometimes she looks stoned, actually. Now THAT would be sad. UPDATE: Ok, look at the next photo: www.flickr.com/photos/laserone/3073469467/

(quote in photo taken from Entertainment Magazine;
everglowmedia.net/gallery/displayimage.php?album=510&…

Captured and shared with the Jing Project



My recent Twitter entries.


Crappy mood. Lousy websites.

I love trying to join a website / forum and it just is more trouble than it’s worth.  I tried to join a site today, I failed 4 times just trying to get past the first screen between all their spam-bot failsafes and taken user names.  Then I registered finally and the confirmation email never came through.  So I did it AGAIN, using a second email addy and that confirmation came right through (where’s the first one?) and I got on.  I wrote a post, and it failed.  I tried again, and it failed.  Screenshot of error:

So then I tried to research who was the forum admin so I could PM him/her about the error.  Found him; but he hasn’t been online in two months.

I FUCKING LOVE THIS.  LIKE I DON’T HAVE BETTER THINGS TO DO WITH MY FUCKING TIME.



I got a kick out of this… (daily show interview)

Mike had The Daily Show on Tues. night and this lady was being interviewed and I was only half-listening to it, and then I realized she was really quick, funny, and interesting (at least to me), so I backed up the tivo and watched her interview, check it out if you want, I just found her a riot;

Sarah Vowell, contributing editor to public radio’s “This American Life” and has a new book out, “…about the elitist 17th century Jesus freak Puritans called ‘The Wordy Shipmates.’

I just really liked her for some reason. :)

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=187572&title=sarah-vowell



Music Videos

I thought this was pretty wild.

I can count on one hand how many music videos I have ever downloaded in my life (and I ain’t no spring chicken).  Of those 5, only 3 of those I actually sought out.  One was a video documentary that came w/ an album I wanted (I wasn’t searching for the video), and one was a video I downloaded just out of curiosity, not because I *liked* the video.  (I didn’t like it, never played it again.)  I got them all from iTunes.

So, I have only ever liked 3 music videos enough to seek them out and get them off itunes (or anywhere else for that matter).  I just googled the director of the one video that is my all-time favorite, one I can’t stop watching addictively even after a few years, and thru wikipedia page-hopping, I discovered that the SAME PERSON did all 3 videos!  How wild is that?  I thought that was pretty cool.

Director:
Sophie Muller

Videos:
Mr. Brightside by The Killers
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewVideo?id=166462082&s=143441

Don’t Speak by No Doubt
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewVideo?id=81664794&s=143441

Grace Kelly by Mika
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewVideo?id=212910553&s=143441

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Muller



Reading and books.

I am quite a book nut.  I am also trying to focus on my writing more lately.  I like to read about books, too.

A few days ago I saw this on Boing Boing:

Publishing’s crises (incompletely) explained
Posted by Cory Doctorow, September 21, 2008 8:59 PM | permalink
Boris Kachka’s long feature on NY publishing’s crisis in New York Magazine is a sad but important read. But Kachka puts a lot of emphasis on greed and foolishness and media and bookstore consolidation, while ignoring the largest contraction in book-sales since the heyday: sales through non-bookstore venues like Wal-Mart and the local grocery store.
” [link]

It IS a long read, but (for the most part) interesting.

Then today I heard something on the radio that I later looked up online.  It was a radio show (which is also available as a podcast) called “To The Best of Our Knowledge“, episode “Libraries” dated 9-26-08.  Topics included were:

Maryanne Wolfe discusses the science of reading. Ursula Le Guin believes books will always endure.

I googled Ursula Le Guin and found her blog, and the essay that they reference in the podcast:

Staying awake - Notes on the alleged decline of reading” a very interesting read.

I love to read. I love the smell of books. I love to read at nighttime, late.

Give these articles and podcasts a peek.  I found them really interesting and enjoyable.



The guy at the bookstore

Yesterday was my birthday and after dinner, while at the bookstore cafe, there was a middle-aged guy with a long ponytail at the table behind us who was reading to himself out loud, quite loudly.  He was reading something about Obama and McCain.  I wasn’t sure if he was just a bit off or if he was trying to preach in his own little way.  Then this old man who we didn’t know wandered up to our table.  He said “Did you hear about the duck who was seen flying over the river… upside down?”  He smiled.  “He wanted to quack up!”  After his introductory joke, he went on to tell us about his mother, his time in Japan, Shakespeare and the fact that it was his birthday.  We told him it was mine, too.  He spent many years in Japan, and while there, he taught his students to put on Shakespearean plays, in English, which he said were completely unintelligible.  We laughed as he shared this and then he went on to read us a sonnet by Shakespeare.  All in all, I suppose most people might have thought he was a bit odd, walking up to strangers with a duck joke and then rambling on uninvited.  But I enjoyed his brief company and might even like to talk to hi again.  At least this guy was talking TO somebody.



Blogroll

I’m going through my old backups of my old blogs looking for other blogs that I used to link to many eons ago.  Some of these blogs are gone, some are now porn, some are still there!  For fun, I’ll add those long-lasting blogs to my “blogroll” on the sidebar here, too.

UPDATE: Ok, so I can see now from a test that I did that I can have multiple blogrolls, so I might make a seperate blogroll just for those blogs that I used to link to on my old site (and that are still active).  That or maybe I’ll just put an * by those instead.  Idunno yet.



Sunday 9-14-08

Today is Sunday and I made a quick run to Goodwill and to pick up my prescription.  This is mainly a test-post ‘cuz I am messing around w/ fonts.  I picked up an ergonomic keyboard at Goodwill but it’s got the wrong plug on it.  My carpal tunnel has been really bad and so I wanted to try one of those split-keyboards.  Oh well.



Recent Twitters (Tweets) 9-14-08



Bird-day to me

At least for the time-being, the best way to keep up w/ me (as far as daily updates) is via my Flickr account, which is serving as my “moblog”; http://flickr.com/photos/laserone/ Also, my FriendFeed; http://friendfeed.com/laserone

We celebrated my  birthday today.  I slept late (as usual) because I’d stayed up too late (as usual), then we met some friends at “Hops” (restaurant), there were 8 of us, it was fun.  After that, some of us walked over to Books A Million and looked at books and such for a while. Then my mom came to meet us at Books A Million to give me my Birthday present and card. We sat in the cafe together for a while. It was fun. There were some odd people in the cafe today. That’s worthy of a blog post all it’s own.  I’m wiped, and will probably go to bed “early”.  I’m real tired, plus, I sorta feel like I’m fighting a bug.



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